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SuSE CTO & President Steps Down
peterprior writes: "According to this press release, Dirk Hohndel, SuSE CTO and president has left SuSE. The article simply says that 'Dirk steps away from SuSE to pursue his personal and professional interests.' It goes on to say that 'His departure from SuSE comes at a time when SuSE gathers its forces and resources to strengthen SuSE as a business positioning itself to lead the world towards what is the most powerful and acknowledged alternative to the dominance of one proprietary operating system.'"
...If you haven't tried 7.2 professional, I found it mindnumbingly simple to install and get everything running quite nicely. I am very impressed with its newest release. Hopefully, it can continue on with the new CTO.
:-P
And a little </I> would be nice
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I am living in Germnay right now with the US Air Force and SuSE is very big here. Just about every computer store and almost all department store computer sections sell SuSE Pro. or Personal. I use suse on my desktop and the DVD install of Pro. is great. I wish other distros would do the same. SuSE has a very polished YaST online update that works excellent and the distro is very good. It would be a shame if this distro went belly up.
"If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people in the world?"
Dirk steps away from SuSE to pursue his personal and professional interests.
Reads to me more like he was pushed than he jumped.
I don't know, I kind of like /. looking all italicized like that. I say keep it, it makes this big bunch of dork news look like a wedding invitation.
"Upgrade your grey matter, 'cause one day it may matter." --Deltron Zero
In the U.S, when a Executive of a company goes to "pursue his personal and professional interests." that's ususally a nice way of saying he was fired. Does it work the same way overseas? I had not heard of any financial trouble with Sude, what might be the cause of this?
To tell you the truth I'm getting worried. But it feels like Linux companies are doing bad lately. I know that most tech companies are havin a slump I feel that Linux companies are too fragile for the times.
Feels like all I've been hearing is Top dogs in the Linux world stepping down. Do they know something we don't?
Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.
Well, not that I know him well, but I've certainly
seen Dirk's quotes and interviews and such
on XFree86. The part I liked about this release
was seeing his email address linked in the
press release - how many "big cheese departs"
press releases have that on them? (At first I
thought they had omitted the obligatory "to
pursue personal interests" but on second look
it is there).
What exactly does he mean when he says personal and professional?
Why else would they mention "gathering forces and resources" when that's exactly the opposite of what happened here?
Then again, it could just be the regular PR bullcrap that most businesses seem to produce now instead of a quality product. (No Flame intended)
-- Dan
Those wacky Germans and their world domination...didn't work the first two times so why should it work now?
Fick mich, du miserabler Hurensohn
m.kelley
life is like a freeway, if you don't look you could miss it.
I wonder what this means for SuSE Linux as it is today? SuSE recently replaced RedHat as my Linux of choice (Why you might ask, because I find that SuSE is more flexable for the things that I do).
Curt Rebelein, Junior
"Anything worth doing is worth doing to excess"
Unfortunately for the dot coms, it's too late. Good luck SuSe, I'd hate to see you lose your Playstations!
Okay u have a press release. That's news.
Then you have some fud from it.
That is not news.
You passed on a piece of what Kuro5hin calls "Mindless Link Propagation.." To make it a story, some analysis of the significance of this fact, the CTO/President stepped down is called for.
I know nothing about this particular company, but the reasons for the step down could be either be a) truly personal reasons,
b) Hohndel doesn't like whatever SuSE is doing to "lead the world towards what is the most powerful and acknowledged alternative to the dominance of one proprietary operating system,"
c) SuSE doesn't like the guy,
d) some horrific scandal,
e) The mob,
f) Aliens.
I suppose you expect the posters to contribute A, B, C, D, E and F.
But, if you don't do a little more research you might as well re-name Slashdot to "Mindless Link Propagation."
Goat sex free since 2001
One other thing. K5 isn't slashdot either.
Best Slashdot Co
Long live microsoft. abadon all hope ye geeks...Bill will rule...
Slashdot is not Kuro5hin.
Wait, the ratings don't work the same way here...
When I first decided to get my feet wet in linux, SuSE was the install I chose, unfortunately because the fellow idiot at CompUSA (I wanted a boxed version with a MANUAL for my first try) nodded his head vigorously and told me that it would be the best for me.
.At the time, the documentation stunk--I thought--really. . .the translation on the manual was incomplete and horrible, although and I thought that the direction to 'masterbooten' was pretty funny. ;o) In addition, I, a windows neophyte, had to learn to compile and install the tulip driver for my network card in order to get networking. That was a trip in itself.
Well, I think that was SuSE 5.x something. .
Now, with SuSE 7.x, its freakin easy to get going with their new installer, tulip is included (I'm pretty sure), and everything goes so smooth a monkey could set up a great linux box. They're moving in the right direction!
I couldn't say this a few years ago, but NEWBIES, GO GET SUSE! Its cheap, comes with a TON of stuff, has a nice manual, and the installation is VERY smooth.
-s
- - - - - - - -
Don't worry, being eaten by a crocodile is just like going to sleep in a giant blender.
most suppositions made by some of these replies speak the truth.
Thats all I can say.
A couple of years ago we installed SuSE (I think it was a 5.x or something) and YaST just wasn't up to my installation needs (that I be able to teach some kid network admins how to do it too). Red Hat was the way to go then, but now...
I like the increased useability in the install on all distro's these days. makes it as simple to install Linux as to format a Windows NT 4.0 box...
That said, i still do all my admin on the command line
Dirk is a very bright man who probably made this decision with great care. It is possible that Suse is in the midst of being purchased.
Suse is a very stong company, especially in Germany, and they would make an interesting aquisition target for RedHat or another tech firm.
Dirk used to work at Deutsche Bank where he was head of Unix Strategy. You can see a short biography of him at the main SuSe site.
He was heavily involved in the XFree86 project, which SuSE have supported for a number of years, in addition to their support for KDE, OpenLDAP etc.. There is an interview with him at Changelog.
I think he will be missed at SuSE but they employ over 220 people worldwide and support many more development effors, while making a profit, so don't write them off on the basis of this announcement.
I am currently running SuSE 7.2 on both my PC and Laptop. It is the best distribution I have used to date and the Support for XFree86 and KDE2.x is useful and appreciated.
One interesting observation concerns a recent install I did on my IBM X21 Laptop, when SuSE was installed from DVD it installed completely in under an hour and correctly recognised network card and video Driver. Installing Windows 2000 on the other partition failed to recognise network or video card, it took 5 hours of downloads to fix this. Power management also works a treat on the laptop by defaut, credit and thanks to SuSE for this, and good luck for the future.
If SuSE wants to lead the Linux world (and they have a chance), they're going to have to truly innovate to differenciate themselves from the other distributions, not just incrementally improve.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
who's gonna break the news to the NYSE folks who are implementing IBMs solution based on linux (i'm too lazy to link to the /. article)?
I've long believed that the only way you can make money selling free software is if you don't have to pay to develop it (since that's a huge burden to bear), and you either you really kick ass in the support market or you cook up some kind of subscription-style service that people will actually pay for.
Insiders in the Linux business have been predicting a heavy consolidation of commercial Linux providers for some time, and I expect it to happen sooner rather than later.
jerking off while browsing at -1... mmm mmm mmm...
Unless you have some nice auto install scripts done, installing NT 4 can be a nightmare. The setup program is not very helpful and the interface before you get to the GUI is laughable as most of the time you have to reboot and restart the install if you select the wrong option.
Also as if you did n't have a BIOS that supported bootable CD's you had to make those 3 disks. This would be fine if the setup routine was n't the most picky with your disks. For example it copies the files to your disks, verifies the files.. but when you get to the install a file from the disk it fails!
I have been trying to post articles on Slashdot for a month now, but they are insistant on publishing other articles. I just posted an article on Quantum Computing. I think you will all enjoy it quite a bit. For those of you who do not know what Quantum computing is, the article explains it quite well. Here is the link . You can post comments on the article below it. Please tell me what you think.
Too bad the SuSE distro treats all quotes and double quotes as control characters... Has anyone else noticed that the have to hit the single quote button twice to get a measly single quote output to the OS? And that if you hit other characters right after a quote, you sometimes get those funky foreign characters?
Solomon
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
Rats are running away from the sinking ship. That's all. First - layoffs, then - running rats
'Dirk steps away from SuSE to pursue his personal and professional interests.' It goes on to say that 'His departure from SuSE comes at a time when SuSE gathers its forces and resources to strengthen SuSE as a business positioning itself to lead the world towards what is the most powerful and acknowledged alternative to the dominance of one proprietary operating system.'"
(sigh) When an Open Source company starts speaking in corporatese, it's time to say goodbye. Was nice knowing ya SuSe, I guess the ride's over.
This one reminded me of a Dilbert strip:
"I'd like to dialogue with you about utilizing resources..."
Disgusting.
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
The PR rep had a couple of short comments that, while not earth-shaking in their revelation, at least shed a little bit of light on Hohndel's mindset-- here at Newsforge.
tinahdee beautiful jewelry: silver, gold, gemstones tinahdee.etsy.com tinahdee.com facebook.com/beautifuljewelry
it's interesting to see how Big corps can make bucks out of linux while the small companies who where there from the start are faltering. is this another form of corporate buyout..? it's along the same lines as the local bookstore never making it while has no trouble finding customers..
It seems that the August article on the "Linux Chameleon" in Linux mag was a bit uninformed as the instability of his position there. Its a great article but the you'll have to grab the print copy of it since the website seems only to carry the TOC. Its a crying shame to see him get his walking papers. But, needless to say, I think a "keep an eye on that one" is appropriate, whatever his "personal insterests" turn out to be.
These "funky characters" are called accents. You might want to change your keyboard layout to accomodate your needs by using yast.
SuSE has nothing bad against them. They have been a great distro and will continue to improve. I run 7.2 and have no problems installing it on a PIII 450. A big bounus is that the programs used aren't specialy crafted for SuSE, they are the original.
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
In the land of the dark (Micro$oft)
the ship of the sun (*nix)
is driven by the grateful dead. (.......)please fill in the blank.
Rien n'est plus beau que le creux du 0.
This sounds just like the PalmPilot Dilbert mission statement generator...
SuSE is a great distro.
Now you pop in a CD, answer a couple questions about language choice and location and go watch TV for 20 minutes and your new linux box is ready.
Works great. No fuss no muss no outside assistance.
You can leech RedHat RPM's too.
Hang on SuSE... many are just starting to see the green light!
Thrazzle
If ignorance is bliss you'd think American Christians would be the happiest people on earth.
SuSE 7.2 has been out for a little over two months now, and I expect to see 7.3 fairly soon. Does anyone have any news about that being delayed (or released before a new CTO can try to make changes to it)? I think I read that there will positively be an Alpha release of 7.3...
SuSE seems like a nice distro, but I got the feeling that they are trying much harder than, say, RedHat, to force people to buy the CDs. I think it would be problematic for Linux if SuSE became the predominant distribution.
Get out while the gettin's good? Linux hasn't hit
critical mass in the desktop, if it ever will. Not his fault, Linux just doesn't offer any significant advantages over windows for most consumers. Open source is for hackers and cheapskate IT'ers. C'mon how many versions has it taken to be as simple as MS, too damn many. Every couple of months someone releases another Linux distro, inadequate drivers...few measly apps. What a load of crap, just more hype from the computer industry. Open source is just another scam.
Syllogism
/.) I'd love to have extensive resources (I won't be greedy and wish for unlimited resources) without working (my current income generating strategy, since my "Win the PowerBall" strategy didn't pan out).
Major premise:
SuSE (like all companies) has to have financial resources to pay all of its programmers and staff.
Minor premise:
You disdain SuSE for trying to generate income.
Conclusion:
You know of a way of having financial resources without generating income.
Please share this secret with me (and everyone else here on