Bonum Certa Men Certa

Novell News Summary - Part I: OpenSUSE Conference 2009 Reports

Gecko



Summary: OpenSUSE news this week is mostly to do with the conference which ended last week

A LOT has been written about the conference in Nürnberg, but the one person who wrote the most about it was also in part an organiser.

We have several tracks at the conference — two tracks of pre-planned discussions, two rooms for the “unconference” which have been consistently lively and full, and the “hallway” track.


Keysigning and elections were on the agenda. Coverage came mostly from the OpenSUSE community, e.g. the ambassador Sascha Manns [1, 2]. Roger Whittaker flew over from the UK to Germany [1, 2, 3, 4] and so did Benjamin Weber. Bryen Yunashko from the Board also attended alongside core members like Adrian Schröter and Andreas Jaeger, who collected some links to photos.

Today at the openSUSE Conference I took the notes of the governance session. We will continue the discussion tomorrow but let me just publish the raw notes as I took them at the meeting without much editing.


 

Sunday morning of the openSUSE conference I took part in the Lightning Talks which were short talks on a variety of topics.


More photos can be found here.

Zonker wrote about the event in the company's PR blog and his final coverage was crossposted (semi-professional and the personal blog). Michael Löffler did a wrap-up, Martin Vidner took notes later in the week, and a female member of the team was disappointed that they had no shirts for females at the conference.

Unfortunately, this year's openSUSE conference organizing team either assumed that all the conference participants will be male, or (more likely) deliberately chose not to take female minority into account. Ladies tees were sadly not among the conference swag. So I said no, thanks, I already have a shelf full of Linux/opensource/tech conference T-shirts I can hardly wear, because they simply do not fit (those of you who happened to meet me at the conference know that I look drowned even in men's S size ;-) ). I see no point in handing them to friends/relatives either, after all, it was me, not them, who participated at the event, right?


Some technical work that transpired at the conference is this:

On the outskirts of the OpenSUSE Conference, core developers revealed details on the new openSUSE version 11.2. Although it will have Kernel 2.6.31, browser users will have to wait a bit longer for YaST.


In other news, OpenSUSE Edu Li-f-e is said to have gone "hybrid" (not meaning semi-proprietary).

I am happy to announce that the very first working hybrid iso of openSUSE Education Li-f-e DVD created on openSUSE Build Service is now available for testing.


A few days ago, Zonker canceled the project's IRC meeting. He explained this decision as follows: "The openSUSE Project meeting for today is canceled as many of the openSUSE team are traveling or in off-site meetings today. The next meeting will be held in two weeks. If you have any questions or concerns in the meantime, please feel free to bring them up on the -project mailing list." So the IRC meeting was canceled, but SLLUG decided to hold a meeting with an introduction to SUSE Studio.

This month's Salt Lake Linux Users Group (SLLUG) meeting will be an introduction to SUSE Studio.


On the technical side, Duncan writes about zypper, as usual, Sascha Manns puts another package in OBS and here is a new set of instructions for Avidemux on OpenSUSE. An OpenSUSE/SLE book is being put together as yet another new product gets OpenSUSE preinstalled.

TabletKiosk announced three portable computers running OpenSUSE Linux 11 on Intel Atom processors, two of them seven-inch UMPCs (ultra mobile PCs) with built-in Wacom digitizers. The UMPCs are the Eo a7330D and the ruggedized TufTab a7230XD, joined by the 12.1-inch Sahara NetSlate a230T tablet, according to the company.


On the Moblin/Goblin side of things, mechanisms from OpenSUSE are being converged and the significance of this we last mentioned here. Moblin and OpenSUSE getting together [1, 2] would raise some important questions. More news can probably be found in the OpenSUSE Web site.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Universities Became Bad Places for Work
What happened to academia?
Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 11 Out of 200: Cannot Censor His Spouse, Accusations Are Repeated Today
He already has a history of threatening to sue gay people in America; he cannot take criticism too well
"Alternative to Microsoft Office" Must Use Free/Open Standards/Formats for Real Sovereignty
It would make sense for the EU to invest in its own workers and its own software projects, more so now that there are hostile countries both to the east and to the west
When Everybody Has a Right/Access to An Attorney/Lawyer (But Some Get Funding From Malicious American Corporations to Spend a Million Dollars on Many Lawyers and Several Barristers)
And send about 75 KG of legal papers to the residence of the "opponent"
 
Links 14/03/2026: Mass Layoffs at Facebook ('Meta') and Sweeping Layoffs at Twitter (xAI), Social Control Media and Slop Are Only Debt
Links for the day
Wrong Time, Wrong Place (Digg)
Kevin Rose and Alexis Ohanian can relaunch Digg.com, but we doubt it'll work "this time for real!"
Reporting New and Suppressed Information is What Journalism is All About
In the domain of Free software, there are very few sites out there that offer exclusive coverage on community affairs and there are many gagging/censorship attempts
The Limits of Speech and the Rationale of Limitations
it seems to be part of an international trend
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 13, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, March 13, 2026
Gemini Links 14/03/2026: Goodness, AD534 Multiplier Module, and Extroverts Online
Links for the day
Atlassian Corp: We're Doing Layoffs Because of "Hey Hi"; Wall Street: Atlassian Corp is Just a Failing Business
Don't ask "the media"
Price of Storage, Price of Energy... What Next?
EPO workers are going on strike because their salaries don't keep up with price increases and tech companies without connections in "the channel" face long delays, low availability, and high prices (no "bulk" purchases), which further solidifies monopolies.
Don't Forget Red Hat's RTO (Return-to-office) Layoffs
How many people still remember that Red Hat did the same thing?
Reminder: Microsoft silent Layoffs by RTO (Commute Time and Lack of Comfort/Work Satisfaction) Already in Effect This Year
It's difficult to measure how many employees have already "left on their own" due to the RTO policy
Founder of IBM Ventures Has Just Quit IBM
Some people leave IBM and many people 'leave' IBM
Signs of Impeding Mass Layoffs - Not Just Quiet Layoffs - at Microsoft
Beneath the surface there are waves of layoffs and even entire teams are let go
Career Science and Academia as Corporate Propaganda 'on Tap'
article about surveillance
Veteran GNU/Linux Journalist Jack Wallen Tries Geminispace and Likes It
It'll turn 7 some time soon
Scheduled Maintenance Tonight
There will be similar work early next week
IBM Has No Clue How to Integrate Companies Like Red Hat
IBM is failing to respect this company's culture
Fake Articles From Sites With "Linux" in Their Name/Domain Name
we can at least hope that linuxteck.com made a decision to quit slop
Links 13/03/2026: New US Weapons for Taiwan, Pakistan Air Strikes Hit Kabul
Links for the day
Gemini Links 13/03/2026: Exhaustion and Smartphone Addiction
Links for the day
Friday the 13th & Debian Developers afraid to nominate in DPL elections
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 13/03/2026: Chatbot "Pentagon Contract" (Bailout) and Secret Service Ditches Slop Pusher
Links for the day
European Qualifying Examination (EQE) Being Reduced to Pieces of Papers One Can Buy, Patent System Rapidly Losing Its Legitimacy
Welcome to the "new Europe"
Priorities in 2026
2026 is an interesting year
Willis Towers Watson (WTW) Producing More Propaganda for EPO "Cocaine Communication Managers"
The Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH) has this new paper about Willis Towers Watson (WTW) and its annual EPO-sponsored propaganda, pretending all is well when things are clearly dire
Head of Microsoft Office and Microsoft 360 is Leaving Microsoft Amid Problems and Mass Layoffs
Microsoft is like a "legacy" company
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 12, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, March 12, 2026
Gemini Links 13/03/2026: "Someone to Take Over Antenna" and Random Seed/RNG
Links for the day
By Expanding to Advocacy of Ponzi Schemes and Bill Epsteingate (Sex Trafficking), Linux Foundation Revenue Grew to $220,730,594, But Salary of Linus Torvalds Not Even in Top 10 Anymore!
true!
In the Name of Transparency, Today We Show Our Defence and Counterclaim
already uploaded by the other side
IBM Cannot Even Do Payroll, Now a "Legitimate Target" of Iran
Missiles or not, it seems like IBM systems will be targeted more by cybercriminals
Links 12/03/2026: Heating Bills to Soar, "Banks in Gulf Evacuate Their Offices"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/03/2026: On Phone Anxiety and Bjorn "Looking for Someone to Take Over Antenna"
Links for the day
Cultification: best candidates avoiding Debian leader elections
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Richard Stallman (RMS) et al Cited in 'Nature' (Journal/Site) Today, "CODE beyond FAIR"
Under Open Access
The Register MS, on Verge of Collapse, Keeps Promoting a Ponzi Scheme for China
Publishers that participate in this simply don't care about their readers
Overview of False Narratives and Lies Used to Lower Salaries at the European Patent Office (EPO), Abandoning Patent Quality and the EPC
Many of the latter slides are the same as Munich's
Links 12/03/2026: Atlassian Layoffs, GAFAN Covering up Slop-Induced Outages, "Age-verification in Operating Systems and the Internet"
Links for the day
The EPO's President, Who Covers Up Cocaine Use, is Trying to Suppress Communication Between EPO Staff Under the Guise of 'Privacy' (and in Defiance of a Court Ruling)
Why does Europe's second-largest institution: 1) curtail communication among staff (including union) and 2) go out of its way to avoid obeying a court order from ILOAT in Geneva?
Exactly One Week Before Next EPO Strike, Media Intentionally Not Mentioning EPO Strikes
One form of propaganda technique/s involves the systematic suppression of certain topics, or of particular "narratives"
Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 10 Out of 200: Showing Public Tweets is Not a Privacy Violation, But This Isn't About Justice, It's About Censorship
It's time to put a stop to this abuse of process (which is what the Judge deemed it to be last year)
Suicide of disgruntled employee? Bus fire at Kerzers / Chiètres, Switzerland, at least six dead
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 11, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 11, 2026
Gemini Links 12/03/2026: "on Urbit" and the True Cost (or Criticism) of "Social Control Media"
Links for the day