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SuSE Lays Off (Most) U.S. Staff (Updated)
assbarn writes: "The title pretty much says it all, but LWN daily is reporting that SuSE is laying off almost all of its US staff. What does this mean for their English distribution? The details are short (and sketchy), but the link is at LWN. " I've tried reaching both the U.S. and German branches: SuSE has yet to return a call placed to the U.S. office, and at the German branch it won't be business hours for a while. I've left that message at the SuSE American office, though, and will update with any confirmation/denial. Update: 02/08 12:03 AM by H :A couple people have sent in the LinuxToday piece. SuSE's PR agency has denied it, but LWN is standing by it, and several other readers have substantiated it to LinuxToday and LWN, including the original source on LWN. As well, SuSE did say that a number of positions were being relocated. We'll keep the story updated. Update: 02/08 04:38 AM by T : LinuxGram has some great information -- with real details! Skeleton crew of 12 to remain in the U.S. What's also interesting is that it confirms that the PR agency had "bad communication," which is an interesting statement to say the least.
>The English speaking world Red Hat This may be true for North America but I see little sign of it in thr UK. Over the last year I've seen Debian, Suse, Mandrake, Slakware and RedHat in use at differenet UK companies.
Sorry, but I do not agree... This "you can not run a Linux shop" has become really popular these days, but this does not mean that it is true. I expect to see early starters (RH, SuSe and maybe VA linux) profitable this year, and Mandrakesoft may join them next year if it continues to grow the way it does now. Problem with SuSe is IMHO exactly oposite from what you think:
SuSe is the only distribution i know of which activly fights "giving avay" of the distribution. To name two things only SuSe does:
- Yast licence (not GPL at all)
- downloads of new distribution are delayed in order to sell more boxes.
Compare this with Mandrakesoft which activly encourages downloading of their distribution, and you will start getting a picture.
If SuSe fails it will be because it failed to nurish a community of helpers and supporters (except in Germany).
Sigh, an idiot or a troll, why did I bother..
--
see shy jo
Not like we haven't heard it a zillion times already. . .
[That's such a fun abbreviation.]
The US economy is definately on its way down. The turn actually came about three or four years ago, but the dot-com boom masked it to some extent and the liberal biased press masked it the rest of the way. Large amounts of mismanagement during the past presidency were the real root of the problem, with a lack of foreign policy being one of the main issues.
The doomsaying going on now is actually only the numbers being reported accurately for the first time in quite a long time. It only seems a bit radical because of the sudden change out of skewed numbers.
Granted the doom and gloom is slightly exaggerated because of the president trying to get a tax cut through the legislature, but on the whole yes, the US economy is going through a large slowdown, as it has been for about three or four years.
Non-partisan numbers probably don't exist either way. For that reason, I would simply trust the numbers that are most consistant with the rest of the news, and those happen to be the ones that point to an economic slowdown (or perhaps an economic speedup slowdown, as it's about a derivation away) beginning a couple of years ago.
:) I'm sorry, but the voting machines in the US are too inaccurate to say exactly who won the election. Count all you want, you'll never find out because voting machines with a 4% error can't tell who won in an election with a 3% difference.
As far as the man who lost both popular and electoral votes, noone knows who that is
The real underlying problem is really people who do a large number of self serving things that hurt the rest of the country, and even the world. Take the past administration, for example...
If the Clinton administration's strongest side was its foreign policy, then thank got they're out. The administration's policies were all over the place, lacking any type of real consistancy or logic except for that logic which would benefit Clinton or his friends personally.
Perhaps they had a policy, but it sure looked like they were playing by ear to me and many others. In any case, the foreign actions of the administration seemed only consistant in that they half-assed everything. Never fully devoting resources to anything only ended up wasting them and making things worse for the US and the other countries involved.
I mean, come on, what good did he do internationally? And at the same time we have soaring oil prices causing major economic and industrial turmoil. The lack of a consistant, and consistantly good, foreign policy was a direct contributer to that.
When 12 out of 42 stay that's hardly "everyone", you liar. Plus, we never ever had an office in hyper-expensive San Francisco.
--
Michael Hasenstein
http://www.suse.de/~mha/
First of all that's FreeBSD, not OpenBSD. I am not aware of any big web site that runs OpenBSD. Would you care to point one out?
Secondly, I can name quite a few big web sites that do run Linux: dejanews, google, amazon, etoys, walmart, salon magazine,... I'm not trying to knock *BSD in here, but check your facts before you post.
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If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
He's also an asshole and a jackass.
SuSE isn't going away, they've just announced
a new version.
This is nonsense. I am an American, my mother
tongue is French and I use SuSE.
I'm sorry that your pet usability tool was not included, but that doesn't at all constitute an actual review of the usability features.
-josh
Actually it is more like zoo-za ...
-- NoWonder of WonderWorks/OmegaProject
I know of one way in which the NT4 APIs are badly designed...
WaitForMultipleObjects
At first, I thought it was wonderful. What a nice way to combine the ability to wait on all synchronization primitives.
Then, I thought some more. I realized that this required all synchronization primitives make a system call. No spin locks. This is big. Spin locks are what make multi-threaded programming worth doing, instead of being merely an excercise in how to make your program both more intellectually challenging to debug, and slower. Oops.
And don't get me started on the wide variety of IPC 'primitives' that have no model (like sockets/file descriptors in Unix) that tie them all together.
Neither of these two things are inconsistencies. They're just badly thought out.
One other badly thought out thing. The API for opening up a directory and scanning it makes too many assumptions about why you might be doing that. I can only be vague here because I can't recall the API exactly, only that quality of it.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Corel partly counts, but they haven't gone bankrupt. I forgot about Stormix.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Well, maybe the extra money to Microsoft is well spent by not having to worry that they'll go belly-up. Perhaps Amiga, Mac, OS/2, RedHat, SuSe (at least the U.S. users), Stormix, BeOS and Corel Linux fans know what I'm talking about here.
And then subtract all the money that you could've been earning instead of fiddling around in vi with countless configuration files. Oh wait, I forgot most people around here don't have real jobs. ;) Carry on!
Cheers,
Ahh yes, it's very comforting to know that Linux Today has taken it upon themselves to track down and identify any heathen who violates the Linux Groupthink and dares utter a disparaging word about Linux.
Would you expect any less from Linux zealots?
Cheers,
Christ lays out very clearly the way to salvation.The path is open to all.Of all of us that have lived here on earth only Jesus Christ is perfect, we are not.we are surrounded by sin.this age of sin will not last long.If you grow weary of killing and slavery, and murder and cons, don't worry too much, God will put a stop to it for all time, get ready.
Michael is a stand-up guy. I'm not employed by Suse but Michael and I have worked together in the past on Open Source projects. He's Suse's representative at Oracle headquarters in California, where he is based. IMHO he's done more to clear up this situation than all of Suse's PR, officers, and anonymous tipsters combined.
Michael, nice to see you're still there.
Matthew
Orasoft
______________
I guess the 8 developers that were laid off aren't really special enough to make anything. Plus, all of this coming from a guy employed by SuSE DE not INC. It's all about where your paychecks come from. idiot.
/. finds me to be 20% Troll, 80% Funny
Bought Suse retail. $43.50. Promised to deliver support for handicapped. Bullshit. Not even a copy of Emacspeak on it. Bought Mandrake, $5 at user group meeting. Saved days to hours time setting up. See Ya Suse, you sucked anyways. And lied. Where's my $10 rebate now?
Bitches.
As someone working for IBM I know that we are developing linux products specifically for use on SuSE's 390 distro. As I understand it there is a big demand for a solid linux distro for the 390 and companies with 390s are willing to pay big bucks for support too. SuSE has a great jump on the competition.
Hmm. The way I see it, my time is valuable too.
Let's say my average rate is $25 an hour.
I can spend $30 to get a Linux distro. (I bought SuSE 7.0 Pro for damn near $70 - what a crock!) Then I'd go to FTP sites here and there to pick up the latest versions of everything. Say I spend an hour installing it, and spend 3 hours tracking dependencies down so I can install the latest drivers/XFree86/etc.
$30 + $25/hour * 4 hours = $130. (I can also get download the CD image, in 10 minutes; I can subtract, say, $25 from the original purchase, but I'm still at $105.)
Or, I could go get the latest OS from your favorite vender (Be/MS/etc) for less and update all of it from just a handful of sources (nvidia.com, soundblaster.com, microsoft.com, and/or be.com).
All in all, the price ratio seems pretty even to me.
-Paxton
At my work place, I use SuSE (i'm from the U.S.). one of my co-workers is Chinese and uses mandrake. One of my co-workers is Mexican and uses Red Hat. I had a co-worker (an intern) who was Russian. He used Red Hat, then switched to Slackware and then switched to Mandrake (he switched because he changed machines and used the cds that were closest to his computer). I'm also using Debian at work on a test machine and at home on a machine.
ohyeah, I use gnome on SuSE, and the people on mandrake and Red Hat are all using KDE.
i guess what i'm saying is that in my experience they distributions are doing just fine at being cross-cultural.
Darth -- Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
I guess I'm just spoiled with this 1.5mbit down connection :/
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Check out my blackbox styles
this is a problem with linux when it goes retail. A product that is a free download doesn't have much of a source of income. Working for something open source or gpl or whatever the hell it is comes at a price.
Now be gentle when replying to this comment. I'm no linux buff, but I don't have to be one to see the obvious that more people are likely to download SuSE than buy it at the store...
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Check out my blackbox styles
While it's true that some things in AIX are not where your typical Linux user would expect them to be, that is certainly not the standard that should be used to measure the OS's worth. AIX is stable, scalable, and downright dependable, so your statement smacks of ignorance. But then you go further and attach the label "Nazi" to it. This is a despicable ad hominem, marked by sheer, unadulterated hatred. You, sir, must be a sad, sorry, pitiful little man. Get help, quick.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
Are you spitting bile out between your teeth as you write this shit? What am unimaginably hateful attitude. The problem you describe has been fixed, and it's been fixed for some time. Oh, that's right .. I forgot! Linux has never had any bugs! As a matter of fact, AIX is the only OS that's ever had a problem! Why don't you get a life? Go out on a date with a girl. Write some goddamn code. You're so full of pent-up hatred that I shudder even replying to your post.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
My experience has been similar. We had an RS/6000 in our CS department that was up for slightly over a year (~370 days or thereabouts.) This was a heavily-used machine that ended up finally going down so that we could replace the UPS .. so there's no telling how long it would have stayed up if we had allowed it to keep going! I've never had the pleasure of looking after an AIX box since then, and (not surprisingly) I've never had a box as reliable as that one. My motto: "If you ain't using AIX, you ain't using SMIT."
I have found that typical AIX bashers are mindless bigots who speak from zero experience.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
Well, Jesus Christ on a corndog. I guess I missed the notification that the Jargon File is the end-all authority on OS quality. Yes, earlier versions of AIX had issues. So did earlier versions of IRIX, Solaris, and other commercial UNIX variants. By your argument, Windows 2000 should be avoided because Windows 1.0 was such a piece of shit. And only a moron would use Linux 2.4 because the original Linux kernel supported virtually no hardware. Makes perfect sense, right?
Well, according to you, it does.
Those who are under the impression that anti-AIX bigotry will be tolerated on Slashdot (or anywhere else, for that matter) are sadly mistaken. Get a life. Try using it instead of simply reading about it in the Jargon File.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
That's a good trick. Note that I specifically mentioned kernel patches. You can do that without downtime? You must be able to also spin straw into gold because, take yer pick, both are bullshit.
You must be a Linux or Windows user. This would explain your apparent reliance on upgrading your kernel every couple of weeks to eradicate the latest bug that was found. It will doubtless come as a shock to you to realize that real production operating systems don't need to be upgraded every time the wind changes directions. Hope you were sitting down, kiddo, because I can't be responsible for any head trauma you may have suffered during your fainting spell. Anyway, the next time you're downloading 2.4.2.1b39a to patch the latest exploit, I'll be thinking of you.
And keep driving that car without ever taking it "down" for maintenance too, and we'll who makes it further in our travels in the same vechicle.
This is a laughable, juvenile comparison that serves only to illustrate the impassible gulf between my vast experience and your lack thereof. My peals of loud, braying laughter are most likely disturbing the neighbors. Servers do not need to have fluids changed every 3,000 hours of uptime. Nor do they need to have brake lines inspected. If your preferred method of system administration is to pour 10W-30 into your server's air slots, then it is little wonder that you have no chance whatsoever of approaching uptimes that even resemble those attained by real admins running real operating systems.
Nice try, though. Have fun tinkering with your "vechicle" (sic).
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
Gee, that's funny; I thought I specifically mentioned in the previous reply that the machine was heavily used. And as far as security holes are concerned, there are actually systems that can be patched without taking them down. With the system in question, I had to patch a bug in rlogind to fix a root exploit, but that was it; no reboot involved. The rest of your post sounds like sour grapes from somebody who's never acheived a similar uptime. Hey, don't sweat it, guy. It's not your fault. Not everybody is lucky enough to run AIX. Maybe one of these days you'll trade up.
Until then, happy downtime to you!
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
I don't have the sources handy but these are pretty close to the actual words they said when asked about the economy.
Gearge Bush: "It looks like we are headed for a recession"
Dick Cheney: "It looks like we are headed for a recession"
Bill Clinton: "The economy has been growing at near 5% for a while now and it would be unreasonable to expect it to keep growing that fast. A two to two and half percent growth is much more reasonable"
Which comments do you think put the fear of god into the consumers of this country just before christmas?
War is necrophilia.
He deliberately talked down the economy so he can those get those tax cuts through.
War is necrophilia.
I hope moderators get this moderated up to a 5. This is importanant stuff. I particularly think it's important to read the last paragraph about the charges for the boxed version. This is why I have no problems what-so-ever paying for SuSE (although I'll admit I only buy about once a year now).
For those who fight for it, life has a flavor the sheltered will never know.
Why the hell has this been classified as a troll? I see more spam about how superior Debian is than this and it isn't mod'd as a troll. Biased mofos. This is actually a little informative don't you think? Bah!!! Crack-heads!
For those who fight for it, life has a flavor the sheltered will never know.
Well, I don't know about "gone down", but you have to admit that a lot of things which have been done in the name of Christianity have been cons (which is not quite the original claim, I know). Things like the millions of people killed in the crusades. Things like Jews getting knifed because they are "christ-killers". Things like fighting a war against China to obtain the right to sell drugs there. Things like theological justifications of slavery.
Nothing against Christianity there per se, but a lot against the way many supposed Christians have used it as a con trick.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
I only hope they keep the English version. I still like SuSE the best of all the Distro's. Good old German engineering!!! I hate to say it but German programmers are far superior to American progamers. (this comming from an American programmer who has worked with German programmers).
The Truth is a Virus!!!
It raises some interesting questions. .V / _` (_-<_-<
.\_/\_/\__,_/__/__/
__ __ ____ _ ______
\ V
make world, not war
I've done this as well. I think you'll find it more common in the community than people think.
I bought Caldera's Linux 2.4 preview edition and didn't mail in the rebate.
These companies need our support to stay in business.
Then there's also the convienience factor. It alot easier installing a distro than it is to piece together your own. Sure there's iso's but my connection to the internet isn't that fast.
Top line numbers (total revenue) are up 9%. The growth rate is slowing; sales are still up.
Slashdot is entertaining like pro wrestling is entertaining
...for the poor buggers who've been laid off.
Much as I love Linux, I'm not in the least bit interested in how this affects it in comparison with how this affects my (now former) colleagues, and their families.
I know how I'd feel if I suddenly found out I was losing my job, had a mortgage to pay, maybe kids to feed and no obvious way of doing so.
The real tragedy is the people here, not the company, and while I'm sure that most if not all of them will get new jobs very soon, this is a very scary time, and my thoughts are with them.
James Ogley, SuSE UK (until 23rd Feb)
--
Listening for the sound of the coming rain...
Well, looking around my lab here in Tokyo, we've got machines running Red Hat, Slackware, Kondara (a RH spinoff), Omoikane (a Debian spinoff) and quite a few others... but not a single TurboLinux box as far as I know. But they're all specially tweaked for Japanese support, which most "Western" distros handle really poorly.
On a more global scale, to some extent I think the spread of localized distributions is unfortunate, but it really is crucial to have decent support for one's language -- remember the Israeli guy complaining about Hebrew under Linux yesterday? I'm still dreaming of a Unicode-based distro that would be able to handle everything under the sun, and KDE has taken a few steps in the right direction lately. Someday, someday...
Cheers,
-j.
Dear Linux Users,
please find below the official statement to our
realignment of the US business.
*** SuSE Linux AG realigns its US business
With its subsidiary in Oakland, California, the company has been active in the US market since 1997. In the course of the coming weeks the company will introduce new products to the US market. At the same time, endeavors are made to increase the efficiency and reduce costs. For this reason, SuSE Linux AG has decided to relocate certain tasks such as the technical support from the US to Europe.
"While SuSE remains fully committed to the US market and our US customers, we can be more effective by streamlining our on-site presence in the US and integrating certain functions such as the technical support into our operations in Europe. Here our 100+ staff members already provide expert services to customers in the UK and other English-speaking countries," explains Roland Dyroff, CEO, SuSE Linux AG.
Consequently, the personnel will be reduced by 30 employees. Henceforth 15 staff members will operate in the US, continuing to develop and expand the location in accordance with the strategic orientation of SuSE Linux AG.
"A lean team will handle on-site tasks like sales which are best done in close proximity to the clients in this market. By restructuring our activities in the US we will increase our efficiency and better serve our customers with high-quality Linux products and services," says Roland Dyroff.
...
Best regards
Your SuSE-Team
Michaela Finnie
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
Actually it's pronounced soo-za, more or less, being a German acronym.
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I hereby inform you that I have NOT been required to provide any decryption keys.
Plus, I feel GOOD spending my money on it. I feel that "yes, I am getting my $70 worth". Same with the $30 I spent on OpenBSD.
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
As it's been pointed out before. These are UK jobs.
I can't find a break down of UK market share for bought Linux distributions's (has anyone got this info handy?) but I'll hazed a guess that SUSE is in the top 3.
why?
Because it comes on 6 CDs and is competitively priced.
when most people connect to the internet through 56k here. So don't underestemate how handy the cd's are in influencing people's buy decions
IBM is very quick to trumpet the "Linux compatibility" in AIX 5, but that's bullshit. (Hey, Win2k has TCP/IP services and a telnet client. Does that make it "Linux compatible" too?) IBM (much like Sun and others) is merely pushing Linux as a solution for inexpensive hardware such as routers, while continuing to sell UNIX as an enterprise solution. (And this is as it should be. Linux isn't even comparable to AIX, sadly.) The real computing industry is getting free (if not commercial quality) code and good PR by supporting Linux. And those who do not understand what's going on interpret this "industry support" as evidence that Linux is ready to compete in the real of Real, Commercial Software, which, (once again) sadly, it is not. Linux will reach heights undreamed of by Torvalds and then promptly self-destruct, when everyone realizes it was all just hype to begin with.
--
I like to watch.
Won't give you the nice, printed manual that comes with the SuSE distribution, which is an invaluable source of help for those not 100% familar with every aspect of Linux and all its major applications.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Layoffs and buyouts are generally kept very quiet, even (or especially) within the organization itself...it's a practice that tends (tries) to keep from disrupting morale. Situation normal, and all...
If you're relying (aka 'betting the bank') on being the first on the block to provide feature 'x' through software, you can bet your retirement portfolio that you will face immediate competition from another company or four that are able to provide features 'x', 'y', and 'z' better, faster, and cheaper.
Where you will make bank is on keeping your customers happy: having a responsive and proficient support staff, site services, and whatever else your customers might need to successfully use your products. How do you think IBM stays in business? Operating system sales? Hah!
Open Source's advantage in this regard is that the box is open: if you have the expertise to improve the product, you have the opportunity to do so.
Don't mix licensing issues in with the availability of products. And stop confusing product-based with service-based companies like S.u.S.E., RedHat, and other 'value-added' (God, I hate that phrase) Linux distro providers.
So what about Debian? Which isolated region will it be relegated to? And to think, you said "the American is idealistic," using Red Hat. I suppose if people never travel, and multilingual/multicultural people never spread ideas across language or culture boundaries, then Linux distros will become wildly divergent. The core kernel will be essentially the same, though.
Interestingly enough, though, I use Debian. My neighbor uses Red Hat. Another neighbor uses Slackware. My best friend uses SuSE. Another friend uses (gasp) FreeBSD. All within an hour's drive of good-old-English-speaking Detroit, Michigan. Of course, I speak a little Spanish, and the SuSE user fluently reads and writes ancient Greek, but I don't think either of those facts influenced our distro choices. We're all native English speakers.
--
To go outside the mythos is to become insane...
Don't take the name of my favorite Peurto Rican Jew in vain.
One of the many things I hate. thingsihate.org
Sweet Jesus! A Slashdot editor actually called to confirm a story!
One of the many things I hate. thingsihate.org
I really hope that all parties working on various aspects of Linux & *BSD will make a full conversion to Unicode ASAP. Then they need to insist that all GUI text widgets and command lines be capable of rendering any combination of languages/scripts. I don't mean that everything has to work in version 1, just that complete globalization of all functionality is assumed to be the target from the start, so the proper foundation is laid. None of the usual, "we'll think about internationalization *after* we've carved the architecture in stone."
I want to be able to cut mixed Hebrew, Japanese, and French text (or anything else representable by Unicode) from a GUI widget running on one distribution and paste it to the command line of a CLI app running via telnet on another machine running another distribution, with no doubts that it will work. From the perspective of all the apps on all those disties, it should be as smooth as ASCII is today.
Then, if they want to specialize ("Ours comes with ten alternative Japanese input methods instead of the usual two or three!") that's great.
(And, yes, I've heard of Pango. Thank you, Owen!)
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
Isn't Debian a non-profit organization? That's why I lumped them in.
Regardless, Debian is a major player in the distro scene.
Now that's sad. Aside from being a Troll, "it's been said" refers to yourself? Is anyone else saying it "countless times" ?? If they were, one would think you would link to them instead.
The jury is still out if these companies can be profitable and survive long-term. Perhaps you are right, perhaps they'll prove you wrong, but from judging from your message, it looks most likely that you really don't care and this is just an intentional effort to start a heated flame fest.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
Indeed. I am that friend, and I can confirm this. This morning a good deal of the US office staff was laid off. Some people will be staying, leaving a core group of people to maintain the US presense and market. Most people already have options for employment elsewhere, and at least one person has the possibility to go to SuSE GMbH. This has nothing to do with bad faith in the 7.1 distribution, as was suggested in previous postings. It is one of the best distributions ever, imho.
"The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think." --Horace Walpole
First of all, my gripe was the sudden increase in the cost of distribution. Where once I paid $30 to get X amount of software, I was expected to pay $80 for the same set of software for the privilege of upgrade. Why do I feel I'm getting screwed? The cost of the distribution would at least be understable if the users only purchase one version every year or two, like Windows users would do. However, since many (most?) Linux users update their distribution much more frequently, the higher price tag of the newer SuSE distributions make it more expensive to run Linux!
Secondly, I was getting rather fed up with the way SuSE writes its RPM spec files. Up to version 6.4 (I can't speak for later version -- I jumped ship, remember?), they have always relied upon in-place installation. That is, they install all binaries and config files in-place on to the machine which compiled the packages. Well, this is bad for two reasons: I might not wish to use the package I just compiled on this very same machine, and in the event that I want to use the package well the new config files already overwrote my existing config files!
All I can say is that after I've made the switch to Debian a few months ago, life has been easier for me.
________
Does anyone actually have a Java program designed to control air traffic, or for the operation of a nuclear facility?
The american way is to sue or abuse the law whenever possible.
Although, I'm not sure how it applies to this situation.
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
But for many users it IS difficult and time-wasting for them to compile hundreds of different libraries and programs, and to ensure they all work well together.
For example, it's much easier to spend an hour (while I'm doing something else) waiting for Debian's APT to install precompiled packages and configure them itself, and end up with a fully functional workstation, than it is for me to spend hours searching for dependencies, compiling, and installing hundreds of individual programs.
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
They aren't required to give away their product.
They're required to give away the source to their product.
You're paying them for the time/effort it took to organize and ensure compatability between all the different componants and to compile them for your particular architecture as well as support.
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
The point though, and what I tell people, is that if you use and enjoy the benefits of a distro today, one which supports all of your hardware and is stable and secure, you can't expect them to continue development without your support.
And it doesn't even require much support. A simple donation of $5-$20 to Debian by many of its users will ensure it's continued development.
I'd much rather willingly pay $20 for Debian than be forced out of hundreds by certain competitors.
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
The thing about this is that most companies in ANY field end up going through bad times or going out of business altogether.
It's nothing particular to Linux distrobutions.
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
These companies need our support to stay in business
No they don't... I'm sorry.. I also bought a distrib I could have gotten for free, because it was easier, because my inernet connection sucks, because..because I felt like it and because I also appreciated their valueable work, I thought it was worth the money
I didn't do it because I felt they would break without my invalueable support
If I felt like that, I would have better go for another distrib. why do I want to stick to something that can't survive without our benevolent help ? they're gonna die believe me !
They do a nice job, I wish them well in their business.. but I don't think we should support them like that, they have to find the proper way to live with their business model. it happens to be hard and noble maybe.. still it's a business
oh well..
cheerz..
SuSE was my favourite distro. Now I'll have to move back to Mandrake.. let's hope ^they^ can continue to compete against RedHat.
I don't know about the rest of you, but IMHO RedHat is good for servers and lousy for workstations. They're slow to improve app. availability, multi-media, drivers for newer hardware (RedHat 7 still didn't pick up my Promise card!), etc. The fact that I can is beside the point- I shouldn't ^have^ to configure everything by hand.
~wmaheriv
~wmaheriv
"Shema Yisroel- Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Echad!"
They're just about to release one of the first 2.4x and kde2x based distros next week.
I was going to use the opportunity to see how far away linux is from being worthwhile (purely personal perspective, ymmv, no offense intendented, im glad you're happy with it).
This suggests that the company isn't so confident in the quality of the release
Looks like Linux Today pulled the story.
All news exists because someone wants you to know. Often security break-ins are leaked by competitors.. etc...
Just because a story came from a linux competitor, doesn't make it untrue. Linux-today is showing excessive bias by pulling the story.
How can whatever this story said have anything more damaging than the linuxgram article, anyway?
Should you be protecting the world from knowing that the Linux business model is not going to be profitable in the next year or two?
This has been updated, and confirmed, however it looks like the extent of this restructuring is a bit more than just one layoff. Although only one employee has been laid off, "some employees are being moved to a different office" according to the SuSE's press contact.
Check out above article (for the update), or go straight to LWN for the other side of the story, where supposedly 'the number of affected people is said to be "around a couple dozen."'
Linux Weekly News's coverage is woefully short, but there is an e-mail from a SuSE employee on the SuSE mailing list posted as "confirmation"...
When I grow up, I want to have Christopher Walken hair.
There will still be Debian!
In Suse's case this is not a serious failure. This is a wise business move. They are pre-anticipating a downturn in the economy and trying to get Suse US profitable earlier than their original business plan called for. Expect Suse to be around for a long time to come.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
I suspect a lawyer had something to do with this. Nevermind the full text of the post is further down on post #235.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
Thanks for the clarification Bill.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
The author of "php_do_something_or_another v0.01ALPHA-CVS02012001" (a great program to be able to view the output of "ls -l
Moral of the story: I am sick of seeing all these "riches to rags" melodramas play themselves out in front of our eyes....Hell, Patrick and the Slackware folks were happy when only a handful of people were paying for his books that included the Slackware CD's....and that was years ago....Why all the sudden urge for these Distributions to make a boatload of cash???? I will be going back to Slackware now thank-you --- (I want to be ensured I will be using a distribution that wont "go out of business" at the drop of a hat when they realize that Linux is better off in the basement with low overhead....)
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Update: 02/08 12:03 AM
Dear God, I knew it! Slashdot admins can travel through time after all!
And...they control the weather! (Okay, I'm still working on proof for that one)
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Let me give you the lowdown
Does that mean if I live in the UK I'll be forced at gunpoint/by lawyers to use Red$hat? Urgh! ;-)
Should I mention at this point that many Germans have better English than a lot of Americans?
Seriously - I doubt that this will have any effect on internationalisation in terms of English availability in distros, because so many non-English speaking countries speak it very well as a second language.
james
(who must try Turbolinux at some point)
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ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!
You're paying them for the time/effort it took to organize and ensure compatability between all the different componants and to compile them for your particular architecture as well as support.
But why should I pay them for that? Lets face it, most people wouldn't even think of giving away their cash just becasue they think a copmany is good. We, as a society, are not that nice. Sure, they put hard work into it, but as long as they give the source away, it's not at all hard for me to compile it on my own machine. Where's the incentive for me to part with my money?
Stupid like a fox!
But for many users it IS difficult and time-wasting for them to compile hundreds of different libraries and programs, and to ensure they all work well together.
ISO!
Stupid like a fox!
I'm need of good Linux people for NJ. Best regards Adilson.
Scientia est Potentia
I thought SuSE was making more money than Redhat
The Internet runs Unix.
Unfortunately, 99% of the people using it don't.
The *real* money is in Unix. Unless you are familiar with the POSIX standards and have a good knowledge of several implementations, you are doomed to a lifetime of unemployment, recriminations and boring stories about "when I was a fuckwit, Visual Basic programmers used to get *paid*".
Um....you seem to be saying that unlesss you are a Unix guy, you suck, and you will never have a decent job. There's this little thing called Java; perhaps you heard of it? As you yourself said, it's not about operating systems. Just because someone doesn't like/know/use Unix doesn't make them less "31337", and it certainly doesn't mean that they can't get a good job.
Way to make pointless statements that insult a lot of people.
Martee
~~~~~~~~~~
Martee
Sorry... I realise they were for UK postings - I should have mentioned the bit of the story I was referring to:-
> What does this mean for their English distribution?
nothing.
There are other places in the world where English is spoken.
*** I am the real stylewagon
When Daimler and Chrysler merged, which company wanted it more, Daimler or Chrysler ? Real question, I didn't follow that in the beginning.
Another off-hand remark. I just found the whole "merger" idiotic from the beginning. I doubted that it could ever work knowing my German homeboys. I feared from the beginning it would turn out that way. This time I feel patriotic for the American guys and blame the Germans for being completely inconsiderate and plain arrogant. Sad, the whole thing.
They are not. ...
Just about every modern operating system was designed and implemented in US
"UNIXes suck majorly and will only become better once the GNOME matures"
You don't know what are you talking about.
The problem with buying the boxes is that things are changing so quickly. I thought about buying a new distribution with kernel 2.4, but there aren't any on my store shelves. RedHat 7.0 is supposed to be 2.4-ready, but I haven't seen anything about 2.4 outside of RawHide. And GNOME is progressing towards 1.4 and certainly anti-aliased fonts via XFree86 4.02's render extension--gotta keep up with KDE. Anything I buy now will be obsolete in a few months (like my boxes of RedHat 5.2 and SuSE 6.1).
Is there a distribution that has a *real* update mechanism that will keep you in line with their current release instead of trying to sell you another box? I'd pay for that box, and probably a yearly support fee as well.
only a few days ago
In this article at The Register: "MandrakeSoft, France's long-time favourite boxed Linux distribution in terms of retail sales is now also number one in the US, according to company officials citing PC Data figure"
Actually, SuSE could only make less losses. 'cuz RedHat ended last year with losses of 10 MUSD. It has never been profitable and would never be. Just check stock price dynamics an finance.yahoo.com.
But why should I pay them for that? Lets face it, most people wouldn't even think of giving away their cash just becasue they think a copmany is good.
that's why i purchased linuxppc 2000 - sure, i could have just downloaded the isos. but i respect the hard work that mr haas and others have put into that distro. and i'm not a terribly generous nor rich person; i find it tough to believe i'm the only one who did this.
--saint----
Funny, every time I ask a Japanese person about Turbolinux, I get blank stares. They all use Redhat. Just because one distribution claims to be "big in Japan" doesn't mean they are.
Well, I have to think that English being the language of international business is probably going to unite most of the major distributions despite any regionalization that goes on. Even though Mandrake's manuals routinely exhibit bad translations from French, fact is is that Mandrake is really popular in North America, as is Debian, with Suse and Caldera recognizable names as well.
the german speaking world moves with KDE, and the Enflish with Gnome
Surely you mean the "English" with "Fnome"?
You know exactly what to do-
Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-
I think of little else but you.
Whoa! Down boy.
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Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Its best to wait for SuSE to clear the air on this. Which they must do!
To add insult to injury, many of the enhancements in commercial software come from the customers in the first place
Personally I thought that ALL enhancements come from the customers... Otherwise, why would you write software at all ? Just for yourself ? But in that case you would be a "customer" as well as a "developer"... (Scratching personal itch, as per Bazaar and Cathedral)
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On scale from -14 to 56 this post is '-15, Nonexistent'
Huh ?!? Of course not, according to Mr. Gates
But at the same time 640k was supposed to be enough for everybody... hmmm
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On scale from -14 to 56 this post is '-15, Nonexistent'
Many people are very pessimistic about that, But Red Hat had its problems too. There's still a huge crisis surrounding companies around the world, because of the "computing is the solution for everything in the world" hype.-
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You think Bill Gates is evil?
I currently administer 8 different brands & flavors of *nix servers, including commercial ones and free ones, including AIX and Linux, and including SuSE. SuSE is NOT necessarily laid out like AIX, and AIX happens to be for all practical intents and purposes, laid out very similar to HP-UX and Solaris or just about any other contemporary flavor of SysV Unix, disk and volume management and other piddly things different, of course. My two most stable machines are RS6000's running AIX. One of them had an uptime of more than 300 days before I finally had to reboot it when the network interface card hung on it after a thunderstorm. Up to that reboot, the Informix 7.xx database engine had been running on that AIX box for 260 days without an engine bounce. That's phenominally stable. I've never in my entire career had an Informix uptime on *any* unix box anywhere near that long, nor had I obtained a Unix uptime of that duration. This speaks volumes for the quality of AIX.
Eh, so what do the Brits use then? I'm pretty sure they're closer to Europe (geographically) than the US. Don't even start with the correct English spellings of various oft-mentioned words.
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. -Friedrich Nietzsche
Maybe not, the way most Linux distros are going about it. I'm not sure if this will work, but the OSS community could possibly collect donations to get various work done for Linux. For example, suppose there's a new device that needs new drivers for it to work on Linux. Money collected could be used as a "reward" for whoever writes the drivers and submits them first. Of course, afterwards the drivers are publically released, considering that the whole OSS community contributed something to get them done.
Uh, shit, I can't remember the rest of my idea. Sorry, long day.He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. -Friedrich Nietzsche
Is it true the US economy is "falling off a cliff" (London Evening Standard, 7th February) a claim which is being made in several newspapers?
Scroogle
> The Internet runs Unix.
Unfortunately, 99% of the people using it don't.
And so?
99% of the people don't know how to fly a 747 but that doesn't mean that Chevy's the name to watch in aerospace.
Just because someone doesn't like/know/use Unix doesn't make them less "31337", and it certainly doesn't mean that they can't get a good job.
You can get a good job without knowing how to spell your name, too.
While you can certainly get a good job without knowing Unix, you would get a better job (on average; this is not a call for stories from Visual Basic programmers making 25 million dollars a week) if you learned it.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
Maybe LinuxPPC, Inc. has the right idea by becoming a non-profit organisation. The pressures of the stock market are not necessarily in the best interest of Linux development. The logic of the open Stock Market/ Venture Capital is basically : "profit or die" while the logic of open source development seems to be "have some fun. Do whatever you want. Be free!" Are these two imperatives even compatible with one another? Also, the business model that says "you pay for services and support" has less and less importance as the software becomes more and more easy to use and configure. If an OSS operating system becomes as easy to use as a Playstation, who will pay extra for service and support? If Suse et al's business model is based on selling support, what incentive do they have to streamline administration and installation of their product? Next to none, I suppose. I agree with the poster above: Cheap Bytes is the only one who has figured this out.
Geez, we really must be as lazy and unproductive as the Japanese said we were back in the 80's...this is exactly what the German members of DaimlerChrysler's trying to do to the American divisions they "merged with" last year. Americans didn't invent Linux anyway, so what do we know? :)
i think high uptimes are complete bullshit. while not being the rich and famous AIX user (i can't afford that; everybody should know that). then what is a home computer user to do? just run windows 9x/2000 and be merry about it? no way. i can keep any machine running 24-7 for more than a year without rebooting. okay, so why do that if a new kernel has support for hardware i have lurking around in the house? keep it clean, guys. my questions instill the answers. i don't need to spend money like that, and call my self a kick ass system admin just to make his post look cool.
I'm using a modified version of Mosix on a cluster of Linux servers at work. The uptime has been 394 days. When I need to patch a kernel on one of the nodes I simply take down that machine, but thanks to the software the overall computing entity is still in tact - all I need to do is switch root servers for the daemons that are running at that particular time. It's an 8-node cluser of P2/400s , which handles the company mail, webserver, and ZEO Clustering/Zope Serving. So, I'm sorry to say - there goes your theory about "Linux is not a real OS and can't get high uptimes". Sorry about that. I didn't mean to burst your bubble:-)
Not only that but it's impossible to make the ends meet as shown by SUSE's and RedHat's examples. More will follow suit just like Microsoft predicted.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
Have a nice day.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
I believe that you are confusing slashdotters with Unix System Administrators (of which I am one). Just got done polishing up the AK, actually...
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I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
Linuxisforcommunists.org
Have you been to Best Buy lately?
.sig there!
At least my local one carries a few distros (Mandrake, Debian, Corel, SuSE, RH)
I am user of SuSE, and very pleased with it...
Yes I bought it...mainly because I am too impatient to download it with my bangin' fast 56k connect.
It's good to see that SuSE is not in trouble after all, I look forward to continuing my use of this distro.
Caino
Don't touch my
I think one great argument in your favor is the existance of languages in the first place. We have a spread of information and ideas, but languages still exist. The flavors of Linux portray to a certain extent the cultures in which they are used, and as Linux is used more and more, those differences will be magnified.
Any arguments against the eventual "localization" of Linux must explain why Linux can survive cultural and linguistic differences that make languages in the first place, imho.
I think this is a sad story, and I don't think it reflects on mistakes by Suse or flaws in the Linux community model. There is no doubt in my mind that a "free" o/s coupled with super good support (problem & consultancy) staffed with people who contribute to the code base is a viable model. Look at the KPMG/Andersens of the world, they don't even sell software and they make shedloads of money.
Just unfortunate that those trying to be ahead of the curve are being burnt by the rapid evaporation of venture capital (the leading edge is the bleeding edge).
Anyway - good luck to all laid off I actually don't think you'll find it hard to get a good job - keep the faith!
**Vanuatu or bust**
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Why would SuSE send you a price list?
All you have to do is go buy one copy and redistribute it as many times as you like with no charge.
Seems like for the price of mailing you a pricelist they could just send you that CD instead.
Actually, djb's software is not open source, because it does not come with permission to distribute modified packages.
djb's qmail license is very famous in distributor circles. Its restrictiveness is the primary reason why qmail is not included in most major linux distributions.
As for djbdns, as near as I can tell the djbdns package comes with NO license at all (please someone correct me if I'm wrong), which means that with regards to djbdns you and I have only the rights allowed under fair use, and nothing more. (Interestingly, djb has written an entire page addressing this very point.)
I agree that open source software offers business opportunities, but djb's software sadly is not open source.
Er, sorry, but you got that mixed up.
Europe=continent.
US=country.
:-)
But I do agree with you that US companies have done better at expanding internationally. However, there are some very notable exceptions. Just looking at Scandinavia, I can think of Ericsson, Nokia, IKEA, Electrolux, Volvo, Saab, Bang & Olufsen. And as the European markets have become more competetive I think the number will increase a lot in the next couple of years.
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Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
Boy, you better run real fast with your remarks. ;-)
I personally look at all the major industrial-grade Internet applications running out there on the major shopping web sites and most of them are running on Sun Solaris, not exactly an Open Source operating system.
The Linux crowd sometimes also forget that the big Internet sites run OpenBSD, NOT Linux (a good example is Yahoo!). Let's see how long before Linux 2.4.x's I/O throughput improvements will allow it to run high-volume Internet sites on a large scale.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
I carefully read over the post you pointed at, and all the reply threads. You are being premature, and are most likely wrong.
As far as I know, RedHat made a profit before they went IPO. SuSe makes a lot of money doing support and special customizations. Cygnus made money that same way.
Open Source has also been the host to many interesting innovations. DNS, for example, is a widely distributed database designed to handle a certain kind of hierarchical searching. Quite innovative for its time. D. J. Bernstein's software is Open Source, and is quite innovative in its approach to security issues.
I think Open Source represents a viable business model. If I can find a job doing Open Source, I'll take it. I currently do write stuff that's not yet very popular.
Some Linux companies have overextended themselves during the past few years of IPO madness. Some haven't bothered to figure out how to make money yet because of the aforementioned IPO madness. It doesn't mean they won't. No Linux company I know of has gone bankrupt yet.
As I said, I think your assessment is premature, and partially already disproven. You're letting your biases overly affect your perception.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
I personally know some guys at IBM. The best way to sum it up is the managers look at Linux the way you describe, the coders and technicians truely believe in it and many use it daily. The push inside IBM (from what I understand) is coming from the bottom up, and it's getting stronger.
Also the linux/390 stuff is probably not going to encourage many people to go out and buy an s/390 (or a z/390) but those who already have one are jumping into this quickly. Several are already using it in a production enviornment.
Finkployd
I must admit, i may be ditching redhat for Suse since Suse seems to understand that it is the applications that make the system and not just the OS. Keep up the good work on Suse, and keep working with Oracle and all the other vendors to provide a stable and successfull distro.
How about "SuSE layoffs less than 1% of planned Dell layoffs" - see this
Conclusion: so the US market didn't respond the way SuSE expected...
Maybe this has more to do with the US than SuSE...
big deal. In Europe (all of Europe, not just Germany and german-speaking countries) SuSE rules!!
For quite a while the population of the EU has been rather higher than the US. The population of the whole of Europe considerably excedes that.
I'll certainly be glad when this little fad is over so we ("we" of course being professional developers) can go back to programming as usual.
<BEGIN Inconsistent rant>
What platform do you want to develop for? Embedded systems? Big databases (which means Oracle or DB/2)? Mainframes (love that COBOL...)? Macintrash?
Or do you mean Microsoft Windows? The joys of developing for at least ten different operating systems, which have *huge* inconsistencies in APIs. Gods, even the NT4 API has glaring, terrifying inconsintency in *it's own API*.
Or, maybe, you think that MFC/ATL/.NET is a nice place to work. Perhaps it is. If so, may I direct you to a supplier of antipsychotic drugs?
The Internet runs Unix. The *real* money is in Unix. Unless you are familiar with the POSIX standards and have a good knowledge of several implementations, you are doomed to a lifetime of unemployment, recriminations and boring stories about "when I was a fuckwit, Visual Basic programmers used to get *paid*".
It's not about operating systems. It's not even about platforms. It's about information. If you aren't adding value to data, you're going the way of the dotcoms.
</END Inconsistent rant>
I'm a little biased towards SuSE. It's a nice distro and I'm impressed with what they have done and are doing for the Linux community. However, my preference of SuSE has nothing to do with what I'm going to say now. Shut up and get a clue! Sweet Lord, I can't believe all the mindless drivel flowing on this discussion. SuSE is not going tits-up. So what if they trim some fat in the states. Just because they aren't strong here, doesn't mean they are dead. My friend and co-worker (who has used SuSE for a long time) used to be classified as a distributor a few years back. He receieved free updates from SuSE in the mail because they had no distribution here. Even if they closed up all offices, and did business from Germany only, I'm sure they'll keep an English distro going.
Just pan and scan this forum to see what I'm talking about. People assuming this means that the 7.1 release isn't coming (which ships 2/12). Going tits-up. Proves they weren't a player or shit like that. Blah Blah! I think most people here post for the thrill of it. Karma whoring? I don't give a fuck about /. karma. I'd rather not have posted this at all, but it's just so damned pathetic.
So, rather than just being another post that says "Oh, so sorry" to SuSE. Let me say, congratulations on their upcoming release with the new 2.4 kernel. Let me also thank them for their development work on the ATA-100 development for UDMA EIDE hard drives. A tip of the hat should go to them for being IBMs distro of choice on the S/390s. And finally, it's good to see AMD working with SuSE on porting Linux to Sledgehammer.
For those who fight for it, life has a flavor the sheltered will never know.
IHPBT. IAHAND. One of the mistakes you make in your post is to assume that most of the software market consists of home users. In fact, most software sales go to businesses. And this is an area where people *will* pay for support - more, quite often, than they pay for software licenses.
One of the mistakes you make in the post you reference is to assume that people like IBM are funding Linux development for charity. Public companies are not *allowed* to do that - everything they do has to be designed to maximise the return for their shareholders. The only reason IBM funds Linux development is because they think it will profit their shareholders in some way - whether that's by bashing Microsoft, or by creating open standards, or by helping IBM to make a profit selling Linux services.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Hear hear!
Red Hat and others look at sales of box sets as a metric for how well a platform distribution is doing. I suspect that many of the folks just download the ISO from a mirror. The distributions look and see that the box sets aren't selling. They then ask "Why should we do anything further on the
? It's only sold xxxx boxes!"
Folks, if you are at a big site and use a particular distro on a particular platform, even if you download the ISO, spend the $79 or so and order the box. Even if you never open it, the distro will know it's important to you!
Disclaimer: The platform I use is Alpha. I work at API NetWorks.
What's my Karma Mr. Burns? "Excellent"
Well some people actually buy the boxed distributions to get some of the extra goodies (commercial bundlings) or to get a manual.
How many companies selling the same thing can exist in a given market anyway? Redhat got a big chunk of US market by being early and decent. Mandrake is doing well because it's quality is/was perceived to be better.
This is just consolidation and retrenching. Nothing bad about it, it's quite normal.
This is humor, folks. Lighten up.
-bugg
From what I know, SuSE used to pay really good salaries here to quality guys (some of them long time kernel contributors). But at some point there came a change. I've heard some rumors about exchange in management.
Since then the recruiters complain all the time that SuSE wants Linux professionals for below average salaries. This would not be that bad as that they are (since what kind of people they employed earlier) incredible picky about the people. Its hell to find someone who would work for SuSE here, since these guys would get anywhere 2 times more.
So it seems to me like SuSE management come to conclusion that their expenses are too high and that its mostly in the HR, paying people too much. And you can imagine that in US are salaries WAY TOO HIGH when German manager consider them. So they just decided to shut US branch and for every US guy they get easy several russians with good english skills :)
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
What's slashdot coming to? If this investigative reporting trend keeps up, good 'ole slashdot could be on its way (eventually) to becoming a credible news source.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
And I suppose that IBM, Compaq & Oracle don't know anything about making money.
However it's still a bit suss that the story about SuSE laying off some employees came from Microsoft, hardly the most honest source of information.
I don't totally agree with you. I don't have any specific materials to cite, but I have read that IBM looks at Linux as a way to have one scalable OS which they can use for everything within the company. This may be marketing BS, but it was said in an interview with someone who really knows where the company is going. They consider Linux as important as the "Internet Revolution." Sure, they have plenty of PR to gain, but I think they also really believe in Linux and what it can do.
Or maybe I'm just gullible
That the lizard is drained?
Hemos said: I've tried reaching both the U.S. and German branches: SuSE has yet to return a call placed to the U.S. office, and at the German branch it won't be business hours for a while. I've left that message at the SuSE American office, though, and will update with any confirmation/denial.
In other news, a water cooler replacement boy was laid off at Microsoft's headquaters in Redmond, WA.
Fervent had this to say: "I've tried reaching both Microsoft's main number and my personal red hot private line to Bill Gates. I've also tried to call his mother, but nap time at her nursing home won't be over for a while. I've left the message at Bill Gates's personal spa number, though, and will update with any confirmation/denial. This, of course, is a serious issue. Try to stay calm, people".
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Is Microsoft Astro-Turfing Linux Today?
Would you expect any less from Microsoft
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
Has anyone checked their homepage?
Not only are they shipping 7.1 [with da 2.4 kernel] on the 12th - they are also hiring...
What's going on?
*** I am the real stylewagon
Where exactly did I mention either AIX or Nazis?
-
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
European companies here have always the difficulty to understand what it means to distribute something in a _continent_ like the US. US companies are masters in going from zero to covering each corner in the US in a few months to a few years (look at Starbucks) and they are miserable in detail oriented, local services.
Germans are good at servicing their customers "neatly". If something is a bit sloppy, the quick fix and throw out uncooked versions, would never work with most of Germany's clients.
Germans are not that fanatic and don't expect from companies to give something away at no cost. (Ironically, SuSE's box is much cheaper than RedHat's and I have no idea, why they didn't raise their prices in the US, as the box has definitely an advantage in their documentation). So, I think SuSE will do very fine in Europe and Germany and should stick to that first.
RedHat should become more detail oriented, if it wants to compete in Germany and tone down their rethoric. Who cares about all your "freedom" discussions. In the end, we want something what works and we want to make a living. Nothing wrong with that. What gets thoroughly on my nerves is that the "real Unix hacker style consultant" would tell any youngster, who wants to get help: "There is no free lunch, RTFM", but when it comes to admit that open source code can't survive, if it doesn't get a price tag from somewhere, the logic goes belly down. All of the sudden there is a free lunch possible.
SusE is just plain better in servicing most of Germany's ISDN customers. It took RedHat too long to come up with an easy and reliable, usable ISDN support. At leasts that it what it looked like to an outsider and "Null acht fuenfzehn" customer.
If you buy commercial software, you pay a lot more for each release than the incremental enhancements that actually occurred. You do this because it would be too costly to switch. To add insult to injury, many of the enhancements in commercial software come from the customers in the first place.
There is nothing wrong with Linux. There is plenty wrong with companies that think they can build huge business empires on repackaged free software. Packaging distributions will at best be a small margin business. Actually, it will probably turn into a loss leader for other services. With better package systems and Internet upgrade support, "distributions" themselves may become an anachronism.
SuSE, of course, seems to be trying particularly hard to turn Linux into something commercial. The demo disks I have gotten from them have not been all that useful, and unlike many other vendors, they do not seem to provide ISO images of their distribution on-line.
Let's hope that all this greed from VCs and business people won't end up giving Linux and free software a bad name. Those people placed poor bets, and they only have themselves to blame.
Open source is not, and has never been a revolution. Open source development techniques existed long before commercial ones. Indeed, most modern operating systems have their roots in an open source project.
Every day it seems that another Linux-centric organisation gets sued or goes out of business
Name three.
Sure, RMS claims that you can sell support - but if the product is good then any required support will be minimal, or nil. Idealistic dreaming, or idiocy?
My company's product is good, and it requires a large amount of support. Also, my previous company's product was good. It too required a lot of support. I think your claim that good products require minimal support is false.
I'm astonished that such a (generally) intelligent selection of people as the Slashdot community buy into RMS's rabid bumblings wholesale. I understand the desire to remain open-minded, to at least consider what he has to say - I'm not suggesting that everything he says is bullshit by any means - but, please, people WAKE UP!
I was committed to open source development and use and integration of open source products before I even knew who Richard Stallman was.
You are being brainwashed by Stallman, who is (gasp!) the ONLY person who makes money from Free Software. Your figurehead is fleecing you. Every time you assign copyright to the FSF Stallman's pockets bulge a little more. Every donation buys him more twinkies and tea-bags. Every time you release your hard work under the GPL parasite you are bringing the GNUworld closer. Every GPL release decreases the 'freedom entropy level'.
I make money as a direct result of the existence of free software. Also, I am payed for writing free software.
I don't care if my contributions to the free software community make Richard Stallman, you, Bill Gates, or Commander Taco more rich. In fact, I hope they do. Consider it a gift, not a tribute.
My hope is that my job, and the jobs of my peers is made easier by my contributions. I hope my code is used to educate people. I hope it's used to entertain people. Kinda like Music, I guess.
Once everything is GPL there can be no going back. RMS knows this, and he knows that in a 'brave GNU world' he would be God!
Meh. Whatever. Whether he's god, I'm god, or you're god, it doesn't make much of a difference to me. What's god anyway?
As long as my code is used and enjoyed, I don't mind submitting it. That's my stance.
--
All men are great
before declaring war
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
With all the news surrounding Microsoft taking the offensive against Linux lately, we at Linux Today have been especially watchful over the talkbacks. One talkback regarding recent layoffs at SuSE caught our attention: it was a direct cut and paste from Client Server News, confirming the layoffs at SuSE.
Normally, we don't get a lot of postings like this: our readers do not take delight in the demise of Linux companies -- let's face it, readers of Linux Today are here because they are fans of Linux -- so a posting of this tone raised my suspicions.
Since there was something fishy about this posting, we decided to check out the IP address of the person doing the posting, 131.107.3.83. Normally we don't actively track these IP addresses, as where our readers come from usually isn't an issue, but I decided to dig into the logs anyway to see where the talkback originated.
Here's what we found:
Microsoft Corporation (NET-MICROSOFT)
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
US
Netname: MICROSOFT
Netblock: 131.107.0.0 - 131.107.255.255
Coordinator:
Microsoft Corporation (ZM23-ARIN) noc@microsoft.com
425 882 8080
Domain System inverse mapping provided by:
DNS4.CP.MSFT.NET 207.46.138.11
DNS5.CP.MSFT.NET 207.46.138.12
DNS1.MICROSOFT.COM 131.107.1.7
DNS2.MICROSOFT.COM 131.107.1.240
Record last updated on 18-Jan-2001.
Database last updated on 7-Feb-2001 18:34:32 EDT.
Does this mean that Microsoft is astro-turfing Linux Today? Given the recent declaration of war against Linux by Microsoft -- and the fact that Microsoft is renowned for its astroturfing actions in the past -- we'll let you decide.
The good news is, most of the SuSE staff has been offered jobs at either companies, or for SuSE GmbH (aus Deutschland).
--
--
I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
Of course now that I go read it again, it says.
Update: after several readers commented that the rumors SuSE denied are, indeed true, and LWN asserted that their coverage is accurate, a followup call to both the US offices of SuSE and Ms. Von Wedel revealed that while no one at the company is willing to comment further on whether layoffs are happening or not, some employees are being moved to a different office. Ms. Von Wedel said she could provide no information on layoffs. We'll continue to cover the story as it unfolds. -mph
So I guess we'll see, but I have real trouble believing SuSE's US operations are closing up.
This may be true to some extent as a general rule about *users*. However, I don't think it's true for the people actually writing the software in the first place. Both GNOME and KDE have developers all over the world and are localised into many different languages. Mozilla too. Wine is headed by someone from Switzerland and has contributors all over the world. Linux is headed by a Finn living in America and has contributors from all over the world. Apache is headed by a group of people from many different places, and has contributors all over the world. Samba, Perl, etc. You get the idea. Smaller projects do not necessarily have developers worldwide, but they still often have developers from more than one continent.
For as long as the developers are not balkanised, the actual potential danger of fragmentation is quite small. There's no reason why developers will balkanise, cos there's no reason to turn away good patches just because the contributor is from Baklaliviatatlaglooshen.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
I've tried reaching both the U.S. and German branches: SuSE has yet to return a call placed to the U.S. office, and at the German branch it won't be business hours for a while
Whoa, doing research twice in a week?!? That has to be a first for Slashdot!
Doh!
> Is this good or bad for linux?
It depends on how you look at it. If the big boys (eg IBM) start charging prices for distros that more accurately reflect the costs of the enhancements they contribute, the support, marketing, and distribution aspects, I don't think it would be a bad thing. It would ensure that the bug companies have a revenue stream that justifies their efforts.
If, on the other hand, the big companies simply continue to rebrand their own distros based on the work of others (a la Corel), and don't contribute to the spirit, energy, and development of Linux, then it is certainly a bad thing. The smaller companies like SuSE, Slackware, Debian, etc. bring more than just code to the table. They contribute to the driving force and energy that has really helped to propel Linux.
Linuxtoday contacted SuSE. They said, this is a total rumour. They've only let ONE person go.
Sigh.
This is just another example of how sensitive the community has become. Whenever someonse says "job cuts" or "stock plumbers" regarding Linux companies, people start jumping conclusions. I work at a VAR which uses exclusively the SuSE distro, mainly because they have a version for our language (Portuguese, if you must know), and I can install a server from scratch using ReiserFS in under an hour. Just yesterday we received info from SuSE stating prices for the 7.1 release, together with lots of other bits and pieces. Conclusion: so the US market didn't respond the way SuSE expected... big deal. In Europe (all of Europe, not just Germany and german-speaking countries) SuSE rules!!
"Some people see things as they are, and ask why. I dream things that never were, and ask why not."
Aaargh! This makes me want to scream...
SuSE is a GERMAN company!
SuSE, Inc. in USA goes down does NOT mean SuSE GmbH in Germany is going down! You savvy?
Contrary to popular belief(mostly in the US), the USA is only a small part of this planet.
People living elsewhere on this ball actually don't allways give a damn about the US.
All this means is that the US sales were dissapointing, (due to an over-loaded distro market in the US anyway) and SuSE will merely return their focus outside the USA.
SuSE have, and will still Rock!
Country today, World tomorrow, Universe for desert.
Coincidence? I don't think so.
... maybe all the techies are just being a teensy bit paranoid about downsizing nowadays, since so many firms have unsustainable business models and the VC equity holders and IPO institutional holders are pulling the plug.
... imagine if it were a closed source OS/Apps company ... what would you do?
Or
I'd be more concerned with news like Attachmate downsizing due to the low volume of Win2K Data Server sales, especially with Active Directory almost nonexistent than I would be about S.u.S.e. problems.
At least you've got the source code
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Linux is splitting into different Distro's for different cultural areas of the world. The German speaking world has SuSE. The English speaking world Red Hat. The French speaking world goes with Mandrake, and the Japanese with turbo Linux.
Now, this shouldn't affect Linux at all, but I fear it will, and indeed I fear it already is. We are seeing the germination of different developer communities based on language, and not on a shared enthusiasm for Linux. For example, the german speaking world moves with KDE, and the Enflish with Gnome, and each have their own respective developer communities with their own cultural values. The recent establishment of a European branch of the FSF can only worsen this, IMO. The European Linux community is expediant - witness KDE liscensing issues - while the American is idealistic, and not really practical, as can be seen with its adherence to the values of the FSF.
I think this is bad news for Linux. We need to see more cross cultural integration, like we used to have in the early days of Linux.
You know exactly what to do-
Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-
You know exactly what to do-
Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-
I think of little else but you.
Is very little. After all given that the business model of selling Linux distributions means that companies operate on razor-thin profit margins at best (without other value added services anyway) it's not suprising that several, or perhaps most, of these companies will experiance the financial pinch and be forced to lay off staff to cut costs.
But it doesn't really mean all that much for SuSe as a whole, just for their promotion and distribution teams in America I'd assume. You'll still be able to get it over the net I'm sure, you just might have to miss out on a fancy box :)
Just to keep things in perspective, SuSE lost about 30 out of more than 600 employees. It's a very big issue for those leaving, and - I wouldn't have thought it would be that big - also for those staying who see those guys leave.
However, from the companies perspective:
- No development for SuSE Linux took place here at all, so nothing will happen to the product.
- We had hired a lot of people in expectation of things to come in the US - and then the box sales (for ALL Linux boxes) didn't really jump up a lot, and the little was absorbed by much increased competition. That left a lot more people than needed.
I would also like to point out the difference between Europe and the US for SuSE. In Europe we have used the revenue from the box sales in a not nearly as competitive, but equally big or even larger market, to grow into the service business. T-Online, Europes largest ISP, for example, is a SuSE reference customer. And the great thing is they don't just use the distribution - damn, that's next to free! - they actually used and use our _services_ and give us real $$$.
Different in the US, here we only sold the boxed product (and started building Services only recently, which will continue!), and for that the workforce was way too big for that in the current market. If people bought as many packages as they download from the ftp-server, and that's true for all distros,...
So, basically, we got rid of a lot of functions needed for expected strong box sales which now will be done by the already established bigger organisation in Europe. you don't need two call centers for installation support if in the territory that the US one was to cover you sell much less than in the over one's territory (so that one is a big call center already anyway). So people here weren't as busy as expected.
The problems together: ...but competition in this area rose a lot
Which basically means for the boxes alone we wouldn't have needed nearly as many additional people as we had hired.
- market situation now lets investors demand IMMEDIATE profitibility
- box sales were the largest contributor for SuSE Inc. revenue
- box sales for Linux in general didn't rise too much...
-
The good news is that SuSE in general doesn't depend on this. Sales in Europe has risen much more, and service revenue of our consulting company - which was founded only in 1999 and is about to become bigger than the "original" SuSE - has reached levels where the box sales have a hard time following, and it's increasing much faster than those as well. Yes, there are a lot more RedHat boxes out there - but unlike for SuSE Linux where we get money for every single one they don't get any money for by far most of it. Of course, now some people might call this bad because Linux is supposed to be free - and I respond yes, "Linux" is supposed to be free, and we still pay the most Linux developers and their stuff goes back to Linux, but "SuSE Linux" is not free. (Well, the ftp version even is, plus the usual stuff, i.e. buy on epackage, install a million times, etc.; we just don't want anyone else to take our final product and sell it filling _their_ own pockets.)
Michael Hasenstein
BEST Oracle on Linux support in town: http://www.suse.com/en/support/oracle/
...and our engineering presence at Oracle HQ will _increase_, not decrease. Yeah, I'm one of the Oracle guys around here ;-)
--
Michael Hasenstein
http://www.suse.de/~mha/
Interestingly, SuSE is the ONLY good, up to date (imho) distro for the s/390, which is a pretty emerging market that will have plenty to spend on support contracts. IBM does not have a distro.
Finkployd
Part of the great thing about Linux is that your can download it for free - which is definately a good thing. But, if you can afford it, please support your distro of choice, else - you may not have too much choice left. Think about how much that distro has been worth to you, how much it would have cost in MS software to replace what you setup with a Linux based box. I am not saying buy a copy for every computer you put it on, or anything silly like that. But if you use it day in and day out - go get the pro version from (Insert local store that carries distros here), and give back a little to the people that work so hard producing that distro for you. -- MetaCosm
The only people getting rich off of the current "open-source wannabe UNIX" trend are CheapBytes.com and others who sell $.99 CD-Rs of the same product which Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSE et al expect you to pay upwards of $40 for. Yeah, right.
The moral of that story is, NO FUCKING SHIT!! SuSE and Red Hat are fools if they envision themselves as anything other than charities. At least when I give money to the FSF (which I do regularly), I know that they aren't kidding themselves.
It's been said countless times in the past. I'll certainly be glad when this little fad is over so we ("we" of course being professional developers) can go back to programming as usual.
--
I like to watch.