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SuSE CEO's Two-Distro World
FrankoBoy writes "CRN has an interview with SuSE CEO Richard Seibt in which he claims such things as 'Linux means two companies: Red Hat and SuSE, and nobody else.' Another example of this kind of corporatespeak can be found in another interview he did with ZDNet last week. DistroWatch has an article about all this in its current weekly newsletter."
Somehow I don't mind this kind of megalomaniacal self-important delusion when it's coming from a company like SUSE that actually has a meaningful, usable, well-crafted, well-supported product that time and effort was put into.
Oh well. To me, Linux still means "Debian and Gentoo, and maybe someday I'll consider trying SUSE, but probably not." Redhat and Mandrake are dead to me. ^_^
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
It's my view that the industry has decided there is one main operating system competitor to Microsoft, and that is Linux. Linux means two companies: Red Hat and SuSE, and nobody else. There will be no third distribution that will be supported by the large IT vendors.
All he's saying is that in the corporate market most of the support is related to these two companies.
Personally I think he's wrong, but he's not trying to deny the existance of other distros or anything.
C'mon -- the guy is a non-native English speaker and the context makes it perfectly clear what he's saying. He said that from the perspective of commercial Unix vendors, there are two Linux distributions they actively consider.
I'm a Gentoo and Yellow Dog user, but the shrieking in just the first 10 comments is completely misplaced.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I'd still recommend SuSE to newbies regardless of this obvious corporate BS. In my opinion, SuSE is still a good distro. It has worked well for me. My only problem with SuSE is that they do not offer free ISO downloads (although they do have a Live evaluation CD and FTP installation). If they'd offer a free installable CD ISO I think more people would be willing to try their distro.
Smeghead every day of the week.
Even more interesting is when you consider SCO just hired an ex-SuSE VP of International Business, to be the VP of SCOSource.
And that McBride comes from being a VP at Novell...
The SCO Group Announces Appointment of Gregory Blepp
Debian/Gentoo vs. Redhat/Suse/Mandrake.
But then I realized he was referring to "companies". Linux is the way it is because it was made by people who care, and the same can be said (possibly to a lesser extent) about other unices(Linux walks, talks, and quacks like UNIX. So does BSD/QNX/etc.)
Don't get me wrong, I like nearly all Linux distros for the guts beneath them. I just prefer Debian over Redhat/Suse because of the complete lack of commercialization; I can get ALL of the available software in the same interface, with nothing held back "for paying customers".
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
The funny thing is that I actually did try Suse the other day. I downloaded and burned their "Live CD" as part of a lecture. I was very impressed at how well it worked. It really was a no fuss deal. Like you I'll put up with a little meglomania for that. What harm can he really do to free softare? Who really needs large IT vendors? The future is free.
He also says lots of good stuff too. He slams SCO and easily dances around all their FUD. He's creating value and sees himself as a big institutional player. Good for him. No free softare based system can be as ugly or as abusive as Microsoft was.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Admittedly, this guy is leaning out of the window here. However, the industry -- in this case meaning not computer vendors but IT companies wanting to use computers for administrating/performing their work, is so far used to Windows, and may not always be forgiving when it comes to quirks that geek distros like Debian, Gentoo and Slackware tend to have. While in the hands of a dedicated power user, these may be far superior to SuSE and RedHat, in the hands of even a computer-experienced, intelligent linux-newbie, they bomb.
Having appeased the geeks (I like Debian a great deal, trust me), what does SuSE(my current OS) have to offer? Easy, smooth installation, flawless autodetection -- as far as I know -- and an acceptable configuration tool in the form of YaST. On first boot, you get a good KDE install, with the important stuff, like OpenOffice and such integrated, good menu structure and MIME type settings. SuSE's weakest points are lack of SuSE rpms for a lot of programs, and the fact that changes to configuration files may be overwritten by SuSEconfig, which runs after every major system change. However, for someone who either wants a smoothly running system, or is proficient enough to disable SuSEconfig and compile some programs themselves, SuSE is quite a nice distro. For those reasons, it may be much more attractive for companies than tweak distros.
Divide et impera!
Can anyone speculate why scox stock is up 21% today (to 12.66)?
Your quote is also out of relevant context since you fail to continue with the rest. Here is the relevant snippet:
/. story submission which quotes Seibt as: "Linux means two companies: RedHat and SuSE, and nobody else." Obviously, Linux does not mean two companies, it doesn't mean any company, Linux is just a kernel.
It's my view that the industry has decided there is one main operating system competitor to Microsoft, and that is Linux. Linux means two companies: Red Hat and SuSE, and nobody else. There will be no third distribution that will be supported by the large IT vendors. And from that perspective, even Novell decided not to compete anymore on operating systems. They now migrate all of their applications to Linux. This is a two-horse race between Linux and Windows. [emphasis mine]
So, there! He's giving his opinion about distributions that will be supported by "large IT vendors". He is also talking about Novell bailing out of OS competition. This is a corporate environment.
What is even more out of context is
If you want more, read the question thas was asked as well, and read it carefully, not just copy and paste. The question was:
But is it Unix or Windows that's being used less because of Linux? And will there be a shift in the future toward Linux replacing one or the other? For instance, as Linux on the desktop becomes more prevalent, will it be Windows that's more at risk?
The first question is: What OS is Linux displacing more right now: Unix or Windows? The second question is: As Linux gets more popular on the desktop, what OS will it displace more in the future?
In response to these questions he mentions HP, IBM AIX, Sun Solaris, and SCO, out of which his vendor analysis comes out. It is obvious he is talking about corporate server environments supported by "larte IT vendors"!
Whoever summarized the article really took offense to the "two distros" comment. That's a pity: SuSE is a good community citizen, and has gone a long way toward making Linux acceptable to the corporate and government crowd. They're also convinced Linux belongs on the desktop--as opposed to (for instance) Red Hat, which seems to have decided Linux desktops are for hobbyists.
He's right, by the way: the IT world is concentrating on SuSE and RH right now. That doesn't mean Gentoo/Debian/Mandrake/Slackware and the rest don't have a place, but none of these distros have done much to get themselves certified for government adoption. SuSE has. Power to 'em.
I like SuSE, and have put 8.2 Professional on five machines in the past few months. My friends love it. It's an easy install, and yast is a convenient manager. SuSE goes naturally with KDE.
The only computer in my life that isn't running SuSE is my iBook, which uses Yellow Dog 3.0. It's tough to beat Terrasoft's Mac hardware support.
I'm happy to buy from a company that's passionate about the platform and knows how to play hardball with Microsoft.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
I'm writing this on my Slackware box. I also have a Redhat server, and my daughter's workstation is a Redhat machine. I use Red Hat for two reasons: 1. A project I am on at work uses Red Hat, and 2. I didn't have time to fiddle around with the things in Slackware, that work out of the box in the Red Hat distro (particularly when you are doing desktop services for your family).
I did find Red Hat limiting for my own applications - and I prefered the way Slackware handles configurations, more 'unix - like'. Since 1994 I have used many different distros, including Turbo Linux, Gentoo, Mandrake, Linux Pro, Suse, Debian, and Knoppix. Over the years I always keep coming back to Slackware (although I use Knoppix as a recovery/utility disk at times - due to its ease of use).
If I had unlimited money and time, I would run Slackware on a standard fast motherboard/peripheral setup, that I would tune and lock down configs on, and all of the 'chrome' stuff my daughter likes (what's a "shell" Dad!?) would be tweaked out for her and my wife.
Unfortunately, I work on computers all day (configs, programming, troubleshooting, consulting on system admin issues - you name it), and have neither the time nor the energy to do it 'right' at home. So my menagerie of computers of various makes, models, ages and operating systems will have to suffice until that day I win the lottery, find out I have a rich uncle who left me his estate, or sell the great American novel...
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain