Bonum Certa Men Certa

OpenSUSE Never the Same Since Novell Signed a Patent Deal With Microsoft

Summary: Scraps of news about OpenSUSE, which is still looking for direction and organising an annual event

Greg Kroah-Hartman, allegedly one of the men behind OpenSUSE*, recently gave this talk at a LinuxCon 2010 conference in Tokyo. Kroah-Hartman has not been closely involved in OpenSUSE for several years and his talks too have nothing to do with it (this one is about "The Stable Linux Kernel Tree, Delivering a Stable Platform on a Constantly Moving Base").





We have been struggling to find OpenSUSE news recently, with the exception of the anticipated OpenSUSE Conference (OSC), which will include keysigning, appliances (many new examples of that, e.g. [1, 2, 3]), and lots more. We wrote about the OSC some days ago and on October 12th Michael Löffler made this call, amongst others:

Just one week to go untill the openSUSE conference opens its doors. We moved all Birds of a Feather (Bof) sessions and workshops out of the conference tool into the wiki.


OpenSUSE 11.4 is coming along all right but there is not much coverage and Andreas Jaeger is trying to establish a good board with new rules, for example:

Members of the openSUSE board shall act on behalf of all openSUSE contributors in the best interest of the openSUSE project. Although board members may be affiliated with companies or organizations that have an interest in the success of openSUSE, they will not be considered representatives of the companies or organizations with which they are affiliated.


Jos Poortvliet too is trying to sort things out while contributors seemingly grow more scarce and the project decreasingly organised, still with some isolated contributions [1, 2] like this audiocast. Back in the days Novell did a lot of exciting work on SUSE, especially before selling out to Microsoft. Examples included the 'start' menus for KDE and GNOME and even Compiz. Not much has happened since then, but the subject is still being kicked around:

This is the third part of the series of articles that analyse the possibilities of start menus and new ideas to do for the openSUSE project.


Well, not much has changed for a long time. Novell did most of the work around 2006 (maybe 2005) and since then the major contributions probably came from Lancelot and maybe Raptor, which did not quite materialise. Then there's GNOME Shell (which became more necessary when SUSE neglected its KDE tradition). ___ * According to the OpenSUSE Web site, Kroah-Hartman is/was "the current maintainer of the 11.0 openSUSE kernel package." Readers have told us that it's him who came up with the idea of creating OpenSUSE about 5 years ago, but we cannot confirm this.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Slopwatch: Another Day, Another Slopfest, LLM Slop Scrapers Slow Down Our Site
We too have some slop issues; this past day this site and the sister site had to answer about 2.5 million requests (not counting Gemini Protocol) and it's slowing things down for everybody
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part IX: Minimum Wages For You (Experienced Scientist), Alicante/EU Paydays For Me (Unproductive, Corrupt Official)
Does UPRP maladministration extend to the false belief that qualified and experienced scientists can play the role of circus clowns?
IBM's CEO Roasted, Sizzled and Grilled for Dumb and Inconsistent Vapourware Promises
It looks like being a chronic liar is what it takes to lead the company once synonymous with computing
 
Our Priority is Still Tackling Software Patents and Corruption in Patent Offices
Meanwhile we got compliments on our recent articles, which means that they are effective
Politics Will Impact Software Choices
Will those systems respect users' freedom?
EPO: Neglecting Children to Promote American Monopolies by Shielding Them From European Competition
Yesterday the Central Staff Committee at the EPO spoke about another "reform" at the Office
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 11, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, June 11, 2025
Links 11/06/2025: More Vulnerabilities Found in 'Smart' Phones, China Extends Reach in the Pacific
Links for the day
Gemini Links 11/06/2025: Grain and Steam Next Fest
Links for the day
Links 11/06/2025: "Quantum" Hype From IBM, US Closer to Martial Law, and “The Nation” Celebrates Milestone
Links for the day
IBM's Goal Is Not (and Never Was) Computer Users' Freedom
More than 1.5 decades ago I found IBM to be an "ally of convenience" because of OpenDocument Format (ODF)
Wayland Shows the IBM/Red Hat Way of Doing Things
IBM is trying to 'kill' X
Who Imitates Who? Plagiarist as Client (From Microsoft), 'Plagiarism' at the Law Firm?
let's revisit the subject
GitHub is Proprietary, Controlled by Microsoft, and GPL Violation Warehouse
"IRS tax filing software [will be] released to the people as free software" ... In general this is good news
Slopfarm Catastrophe
Seems like BetaNews (or BetaNoise) has just suffered a major data loss and restored the site from a week-old backup
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VIII: Illegal Working Conditions
How many people need to die for these people to get their massive salaries?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 10, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, June 10, 2025
Links 10/06/2025: Apple Hype and Physical Attacks on Bloggers
Links for the day
Gemini Links 10/06/2025: Loon Lake, Farming, and Forth
Links for the day
Links 10/06/2025: Jaws at 50 and US Democracy Crushed Very Rapidly (Martial Law Seems Imminent)
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VII: Washing Their Hands After Corruption and Abuse
"Tragedy or comedy?"
Culling Bad RSS Feeds of Bad Sites
Not throwing out the baby with the bathwater
If 'Microsoft v Techrights' is Dealt With by a 'Microsoft Court' (or a Court Outsourced to Microsoft)
More on that later
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 09, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, June 09, 2025
Gemini Protocol Turns Six in 10 Days From Now
If you haven't tried it yet, then give it a go today
Live as You Preach
technology is fast becoming dysphoric