Bonum Certa Men Certa

Tech Genie Thinks It's Time for OpenSUSE to Say Goodbye to Novell

Lizard runs away



Summary: Another suggestion for disengagement from Novell as a new release of OpenSUSE is announced

FOR SEVERAL months we have repeatedly argued that OpenSUSE ought to disengage from Novell and possibly fork to avoid the Novell-owned trademark, "OpenSUSE".



By all indications -- and this is a subject that also came up in our IRC channels -- Novell did too little to promote OpenSUSE after signing that deal with Microsoft -- a deal whose goal was to sell a lot of Ballnux. Novell and Microsoft don't make any money from OpenSUSE users, but they do use OpenSUSE in order to promote SLE*, test SLE*, and generally make use of a volunteer workforce neither Microsoft nor Novell truly deserve.

Tech Genie wonders whether it's time for OpenSUSE to say goodbye to Novell, which is up for sale anyway.

It seems after years of working together in developing a complete Linux platform the openSUSE project that was taken in by Novell have developed different interests are seeking to co-exist with different set of goals and ideas. The OpenSUSE community is developing their own community statement and is now looking for wider horizons. The main objective of this statement is to clarify their goals and put forth a new technical focus of their project.

[...]

The basic problem with all the open source projects is that at one point of time it becomes hard to collect funds and keep the operation running, it might very well be the reason for Novell and OpenSUSE growing differences.

Although it is too early to say that the companies have drifted apart completely. But that possibility cannot be rules out because OpenSUSE has traversed a long way from being a small project in its testing stage to a fully functional operating system that is in commercial use. Hence it makes a sense for this project to have its own goal and marketing strategy rather than using the ideas of its parent company.


The release of OpenSUSE 11.3 came with a whimper, not with a bang. There were few short reviews in obscure blogs [1, 2], but the more visible review (also short) is this review from Jason Perlow:

Despite the distribution’s political and organizational problems — ones which admittedly, I know these folks are trying very hard to address — openSUSE is still a very solid Linux distribution, albeit one which is more for the experienced user than the newbie. KDE 4.4.4 appears to be maturing nicely and now that it is finally stable, may now actually get some significant adoption.


Without blog items from SUSE/Novell people [1, 2], this distribution would drop into obscurity.

Perlow's colleague at ZDNet says that OpenSUSE Education 11.3 is still not there yet.

I really wanted to love the latest version of openSUSE’s education-oriented distribution, Li-F-E (Linux For Education). It was released this weekend, alongside version 11.3 of the main openSUSE distribution, and was incredibly promising with a host of great features. Ultimately, though, it was let down by poor hardware support and a glitchy installer that left me anxious to switch back to Ubuntu.


Other OpenSUSE coverage that we found is the following:



People might subconsciously view OpenSUSE as one to distrust because of Microsoft and Novell. If the backers of SUSE were to put their effort in a project they truly own and control, more users would be accrued and status regained. I used SUSE for many years and avoided it after the Novell/Microsoft deal; many others share similar stories.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Approaching 10,000 Articles/Pages Since Going Static
Trying to silence or derail the site was always a dumb strategy
Microsoft is Shedding Off Loads of Staff and That Can be Dangerous Too
Working for Microsoft is a choice; nobody forces you to do it
Richard Stallman and the Unix Philosophy
When asked about systemd people must remember that RMS speaks as an active Board member of the FSF and also the founder of the FSF
Get Rid of Back Doors, Don't Obsess Over Bounties and Other Corporate PR Stunts (or Needless Reboot Rituals)
Security as a term has mostly lost its meaning due to repeated misuse for many years
Serial Sloppers Are Killing the Web (They Probably Don't Care, Either)
Slop is a disease on the Web
IBM's Debt Ballooned by 8.5 Billion Dollars in Just 3 Months!
Hallmark of a company in a state of disarray, trying to spend its way out of trouble
Big Trouble in GNOME
even GNOME people admit the CoC went wrong
 
In defence of JD Vance, death of Pope Francis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Three Years in Prison for Disney Employee’s ‘Menu Hacking’: The Economic Fallout of Digital Menus
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, April 25, 2025
Links 25/04/2025: Slop Fatigue and Patent Judges Flocking to Fake, Unconstitutional and Illegal Kangaroo Court (UPC, Captured 'Justice')
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/04/2025: Night Manager and Devuan in Hosting
Links for the day
Windows Falls to New Lows in Nicaragua, Now Below a Quarter (It Used to be Almost 100%)
Another all-time low for Windows
The Cost (to Linux) of LLM Slop
Slop 'artists' like Fagioli are far from harmless
Links 25/04/2025: Ubisoft Spyware, Hegseth Fails at Tech on Every Level
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/04/2025: Food Forest Update and Facebook Destroying the Net
Links for the day
Streaming Apps Are “Investor Fraud” That Kills the Planet
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Things Get Increasingly Nasty at Microsoft Ahead of the Fake Results and May's Mass Layoffs Wave
They try to get people to 'resign' so that they won't count as layoffs and the company's 'wellbeing' will seem better
Slopping the Trough: Disney Plus Loses Billions and the Decline of Physical Media in America
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 24, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 24, 2025
Links 24/04/2025: GAFAM Problems and No Peace (or Ceasefire) in Sight
Links for the day
Slopfarms on the Web Almost Always Generate Anti-Linux FUD When They Produce "Linux" Output
Welcome to the dying Web
Richard Stallman's Oxford Talk Has Just Ended, Here Are Some Photos
he might hop over to another European country
Gemini Links 24/04/2025: Birthday and Good Work of Academia in Esotericism
Links for the day
Links 24/04/2025: EU fines Apple and Facebook, Another Microsoft GitHub Security Blunder
Links for the day
New Article Explains How the GPL Came About and WordPress Having Copyleft Obligations
Having been involved in the WordPress development community since almost the beginning, I know why it chose the GPL and how it restricts abuse by Automattic
IBM Gained Almost 6 Billion Dollars in "Goodwill" Value in Just 3 Months, According to IBM
Congrats to the management!
In Belarus, Yandex is Now Measured as 50 Times More 'Popular' (by Usage) Than Microsoft
Yandex continues to gain, whereas Bing cannot even register at 1%. Last month it was registered or measured at a measly 0.65%.
IBM Cannot Lie to Shareholders Anymore
"I would not be surprised if we see a layoff every quarter this year."
Dr Richard Stallman (RMS) Gives Talk in Oxford University in 4 Hours
If you live nearby, go there (it's free as in gratis)
Using a Law Firm's Licence to Exercise Politics Through Frivolous SLAPPs and Nastygrams (to Silence People, Remove Pages, Demand Fake or Forced 'Apologies')
Things must be getting really bad when lawyers act for raving antisemites
We're Working to Make Full-Site Search Available
This site has over 1,000 'wiki' pages, many thousands of documents, several thousands of videos, and about 50,000 blog posts or articles. We need to make them easier to find/navigate.
Links 24/04/2025: IBM Loses Many Contracts, Intel to Lay Off Over 20% (Not Counting Those Who Leave 'Voluntarily')
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Can Explain to Oxford Artificial Intelligence Society Why LLM Slop is Not Artificial Intelligence and Why It Hurts Society
another 'crop' of LLM slop that damages GNU/Linux and facts
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 23, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 23, 2025