SUSE is a patent trap

Summary: Reflections on the patent deal's transition from Novell to SUSE and what we should do in order to prevent Microsoft from taxing GNU/Linux

THERE are serious problems in SUSE not just because it fell deeper into Microsoft's arms (see our SUSE-Microsoft deal coverage) but also because it fails technically for some. As we showed the other day, a lot of the talented developers and managers left, putting the project/company in the hands of Microsoft-friendly people. Outside the circles of SUSE, there does not seem to be much progress as there are hardly any new releases, just security releases addressing security problems [1, 2, 3, 4].

Although there is a conference coming, it will not be the same as in prior years. Some of the key staff is no longer with Novell.

Novell's PR team was almost entirely decimated based on the activity (or lack thereof) in the respective blogs and the scarcity of new promotional videos. There is this newly-uploaded one with Geeko in it, perhaps symbolising the company's shift to Microsoft-taxed distro as a business model.

"Over 200 of the openSUSE Members voted, with 90% in favor of the current strategy document," says the OpenSUSE new site, but did the OpenSUSE community get to vote regarding that recent deal with Microsoft? Or as Groklaw recently put it, did the community get involved in the press releases and blog posts from Novell's PR blog when it speaks on behalf of SUSE? Of course not. The control by a 'community' is merely an illusion. Now that the deal with Microsoft binds SUSE rather than Novell, we do call for a boycott of SUSE. Novell is no more. We'll close with this new autotuned video of Novell because it is quite neat and merely a remnant of a now-defunct company. ⬆