Bonum Certa Men Certa

Do-No-Evil Saturday - Part II: Keeping Track of Microsoft-taxed GNU/Linux Distributions

Crossing over from OpenSUSE to SUSE, consider the following newly-published Master’s thesis which studies the relationship between the two.

This is the page for my master thesis at the University of Oslo. The thesis carries the title: Managing Firm-Sponsored Open Source Communities

- A Case Study on Novell and The openSUSE Project




Over at Nat Friedman's site, there's a call for job candidates, specifically for SUSE.

One of my most fun responsibilities at Novell is running the SUSE Incubation Team: a small team of developers focused on innovation, prototyping, and exploratory hacking. Our charter is to come up with disruptive ideas that take Novell's Linux business in exciting new directions.


Here are some new photos of Novell at Linuxtag 2008.

SUSE (SLES/SLED)



Jacqueline Emigh at Beta News is once again covering Novell, typically based on the company's press releases.

Novell is now in beta with a subscription management tool for SuSE Linux Enterprise, aimed at helping users of Novell's Linux operating environment to manage their software updates.

In an interview with BetaNews, Michael Applebaum, a senior product marketing manager, described the new tool as a package proxy system designed to accommodate customers' regulatory compliance requirements and corporate firewall policies during the software update process.


SLES/SLED 10 Service Pack II



We mentioned it last week on a couple of occasions, but we didn't refer to Steven's new review of it (with the exception of individual comments that we challenged).

In Novell's new SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 SP2, announced yesterday, you'll find only small, but useful, improvements, most of them for better interoperability with Microsoft protocols and formats.


As always, Timothy Prickett Morgan joins the previous week's news a little later, but with a unique and detailed article.

Novell Delivers Service Pack 2 for SUSE Linux



[...]

Commercial Linux distributor Novell got Service Pack 2 for its SUSE Linux variant of the popular open source operating system out the door just before the holiday and just as rival Red Hat launched its own 5.2 release of its Enterprise Linux distribution. Once again, Novell is pushing the envelope, offering more scalability for servers and a more recent update of the Xen hypervisor compared to the RHEL alternative.


SUSE-based MSI Laptop



This little laptop received quite a bit of coverage. Here it is from PC Advisor.

The US edition of Wind will be available in two versions: one running Microsoft's Windows XP and one using Novell's SUSE Linux OS.

A few things set Wind apart from competitors, which is going head to head with the latest version of the Asus Eee PC, including the 1.6GHz Atom microprocessor, a larger 10in screen and a six-cell battery that gives it around six hours of power.


TCMagazine too was quick to make a comparison to Asustek's Eee PC.

With the Wind laptop MSI is preparing quite a bold offensive against the Eee PC but taking on Asus' (cvasi) low-cost offer will not be an easy task. Still, MSI's laptop has sparked a lot of interest and reason is certainly the reasonably low price tag.


The MSI notebook also attracted the attention of Microsoft Jack.

Xandros



The only appearance Xandros made in the past week was tied to that derivative from Asustek (eBox and Eee in this case). It would be interesting if Xandros was unable to flourish for its own products, rather than something that's borrowed and tweaked by distant partners from Asia.

Linspire



Nothing. Nada. Not a press release and barely even a distribution review.

Turbolinux



Not a word in ages.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Register Bill
The Register MS - putting the "MS" in your centre of the universe
Analogies for "Memory Safety" in Rust
Don't worry, it's Rust! It can do anything!
 
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Linux Journal, and the Serial Slopper
Google won't tackle the issue because Google participates not only in relaying slop but also in generating lots of it
Links 07/09/2025: Google Fines in EU and "Your Internet Access Is at Risk"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/09/2025: Little Brother and Corporate Theatre
Links for the day
Links 07/09/2025: More Harms of Slop and Anthropic's Nightmare Scenario (Huge Legal Liabilities for Slop)
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, September 06, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, September 06, 2025
Microsoft Sites Now Talking About September's Mass Layoffs at Microsoft
It's noteworthy that even Microsoft's MSN now covers the latest revelations about mass layoffs
Gemini Links 06/09/2025: SpellBinding Moving and "The Cloud" Ridiculed
Links for the day
Slopwatch: On "the Apology Industry", Chatbots (Punchbag for Customers), and Fake Articles About "Linux"
"news reporting priorities changed"
Links 06/09/2025: "Covid Incidence on the Rise" and Many Attacks on the Press Worldwide
Links for the day
Nobody Denies That SecureBoot Will Cause Problems After September 11
Not even Microsoft
Gemini Links 06/09/2025: Infinite Scrolling and Posting from Emacs
Links for the day
Links 06/09/2025: GitHub Meltdown Over Slop, "U.S. Jury Says Google Should Pay $425 Million in Privacy Lawsuit"
Links for the day
Despite Its Severe Financial Problems Gnome Foundation Inc Paid Rosanna Yuen Over 100,000 Dollars Last Year
maybe relocation should be considered
The "Left" and the Right"
It poisons everything
Mozilla and Rust Are Not Leftists
they're part of the mass consumerism machine
Disposable to Microsoft
There is an extensive set of people who got used by Microsoft, only to be thrown away a month later or a year later or a decade later
The UEFI 9/11 - Part VII - This Coming Week Many PCs Will Refuse to Boot "Linux" (Because of Microsoft's Expired Certificate)
The real solution is, disable "secure boot" or "SecureBoot" while it's still possible. [...] Just like submarine patents, a lot of this problem was "hibernating" for a while
The Thing Nobody in Red Hat Wants to Talk About Openly
There is a real sentiment or worry among Red Hatters, Europeans and Americans in particulars (because of higher salary expectations)
Slopwatch: Small Parade of Fake News About "Linux" and Scams Borrowing the Name (or Word) "Linux"
In practice, LLMs are a risk
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 05, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, September 05, 2025
Genini Links 05/09/2025: Community, ROOPHLOCH, and PITkit
Links for the day
Links 05/09/2025: Vaccine Sceptics Poison the Well, Two Exploited Vulnerabilities Patched in Android
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/09/2025: Logitech Lift and DIY Gemini Servers
Links for the day
Links 05/09/2025: Sainsbury's Caught Spying on In-Store Shoppers and Microsoft "OpenAI is Using Legal Threats to Harass its Critics"
Links for the day
BASIC Predates Microsoft by Over a Decade, Microsoft-Controlled Sites Like The Register MS Don't Want You to Know This
The state of the media is really bad when it relies a lot on oligarchs' money and is appointing editors who are working for oligarchs
Brian Kernighan, "Only Third to Dennis Richie and Ken Thompson" (UNIX), Agreed With Someone Who Said Rust Was Just Hype, Should Not Replace C
17 hours ago
Reminder: Microsoft's "Secure Boot" Certificate for "Linux" Will be Expired in One Week
Many PCs won't manage to 'rotate' to another certificate
"Many of the Red Hat Employees Are Still Looking for Work"
Shame on IBM's CEO
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 04, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, September 04, 2025
Microsoft Started With Code Literally From The Trash, Nothing Has Improved Since
The reality is, there are systems and code that are reliable. But they're not Microsoft's.
Hypothesis That New McKinsey/Microsoft Executive Inside Red Hat Will Outsource Research and Development Operations to India (Like They Do in IBM)
IBM is floundering
Slopwatch: Scams, Fake Articles About "Linux", Plagiarism, and Worse
Perhaps some time soon the LLMs or the "Big LLMs" will run out of money (to borrow) and go offline, leaving those slopfarms in a tough place