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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
But I would leave out Red Hat and SuSE too. Linux doesn't "mean" any companies! Linux means a stable, reliable, nimble, free OS.
:)
Of course, my years of using and contributing to Debian (which is not a company) may have skewed my viewpoint somewhat.
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.
Does the general /. public know what is going with Novell and Ximian? (apart from the Netware admins). This is what one Netware admin had to say:
... This is a competitive advantage to Windows because this is not something you can get with [Windows].
Novell needs a new loading OS kernel to build Netware on. DOS certainly has reached it limitations with scalability and security so linux is an obvious solution. They'll still maintain their same environment and NDS tho. But scalability is their main push. E-Directory (NDS) loads on WinNT/2k/2K3 and linux.... but keeping it in its native environment is still the most stable of course.
And the CEO's answer to a question:
CRN: What do you think of Novell buying Ximian? Does this bode well for Linux adoption on the desktop? Seibt: I would take this as a fact that Novell is taking Linux very, very seriously, and it's another fact that they are not concerned about any lawsuit. They simply believe that Linux is something that is a huge value for the customer. Think about what CA [Computer Associates] just did. They did a survey with their customers about why customers are deploying Linux. [Customers] named five reasons: performance, reliability, scalability, security and total cost of ownership, which came in fifth. What does this mean? Everybody is talking about total cost of ownership, and no doubt this is very important, because all of us have to reduce IT budgets. But customers named four other reasons. These reasons are strategic reasons why to deploy Linux.
Well what?
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.
Mandrake is most certainly a company. In fact, I remember reading somewhere that they've been doing quite well recently and may even be able to drop the Chapter 11 status by the end of the year.
-- Kircle
He's saying that as far as the corporate world goes, Linux == RedHat | SuSE. If you buy a pre-installed Linux box from some IT vendor somewhere, it will have RedHat or SuSE on it. This is basically true.
So don't jump the gun on tearing this guy a new asshole.
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.
Thats bullshit.
HP/Compaq bundles Mandrake.
And certifies systems for Redhat, SuSE, Mandrake, and TurboLinux.
If HP isn't considerd a "large IT vendor," who is?
The unofficial
Especially about red hat. Red hat is the closest to a profitable, properly run, professional company in the linux world. Suse is quite respectable too, and they have a great product to back it up. While other linux distros do matter, they don't show up on the professional radar for most people.
Arguing about whether or not to use GNU in your name, or which GUI is more "free" than the other is irrelevant to most companies. They want good products, not irrelevant nerd-speak. Red Hat and Suse have forged past the anarchistic free-for-all attitude of hackers and made Linux much more approachable. Anyone who says otherwise is probably just jealous of their success...
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
Granted there are all kinds of linux flavors and distro under the sun, but walking down the street in anytown USA you ask any given person "hay you ever heard of linux?" or "could you tell us the name of a linux distribution/company you have heard of?" and most common answers will be Redhat, Suse, and Mandrake - in that order.
Red Hat has pushed Linux into the spot light more than any other company has - ok this is where I get flamed - but honestly what companies other than Red Hat have targeted more than the fat-guru-programmer stereotype nix user. Gentoo and Slackware definaetly don't expect anyone but a power user to even touch there distros. Mandrake trys to be a friendly nix distro, but they constantly beg their users to donate money and can barely keep from going bankrupt. Red Hat and Suse are the only 2 companies that have successfully made money selling linux to both corporations and home users, and of the 2 Red Hat is by far more "KNOWN"
Ave Molech Setting
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.
I think too much is being read into this comment. For one, it's obvious English is not this guy's first language from the text. Secondly, he seemed to be addressing Linux as it pertained to larger corporations. As far as large companies go, Suse and Red Hat likely ARE the only two distros they're really concerned with. They're the ones that have the parterships with the likes of IBM and Sun after all. He's not delusional - he's just not talking about what everyone seems to think he is.
"You can take our lives, but you can never take our Flerbage!!!!"
quote was taken out of context - SuSE's just saying that corporate IT is focusing on just two distributions.
Don't know about you - but I see very few other distributions out there on corporate boxes...
Okay, everybody calm down.
First of all, I really don't think that this interview was very interesting.
What seems to have gotten it onto Slashdot was his "only two distros" comment. However, what the person submitting the story left out was one minor detail: context.
He said HP, Sun, etc., are mostly backing off from pushing their own proprietary operating systems and opting to push Linux-based products. In that context, there are two highly relevant Linux distributions: Redhat and SuSE.
Can you name another distro with the resources to provide support to a major hardware vendor deploying Linux?
Isn't it amazing how much less interesting and inflammatory his comment seems with a little context surrounding it?
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!
I'd be one of those new Gentoo users. I've been slowly transitioning over to it for about a week after having spent 3 years or so piddling with Mandrake and RedHat. (As a side note, I still feel that MDK is the best distro around for Linux newbs). I'm thoroughly impressed with it, and I can see why people have been making such a big deal out of Portage. I've come to feel that Gentoo is the perfect distro for the Newb++, as I've learned many things about Linux I had never known before venturing into this, despite considering myself an "intermediate" user.
:) I think it's this type of flexibility that attracts me to it - You can turn Gentoo into pretty much anything you want it to be.
Being able to start from Stage 1 really teaches you a lot about the system, while a Stage 3 (pre-compiled) install allows you to quickly deploy a system and take advantage of the Portage without waiting a full day for KDE to compile.
I think Gentoo is definitely going to be my distro of choice from now on.
He's right, there are 2 linux business operating system companies now, Suse and Redhat. If I was to ask Dell, HP, or IBM if Mandrake ran on their servers, they'd say "Maybe but don't ask for it in writing", for Suse or RedHat you get an answer of "This range of servers are all certified to work with RedHat Advance Server and Suse Linux Enterprise Server"
If I want to buy some hardware + software, the only way to get a certified setup with Linux is to buy either Redhat or Suses server products at about $1000. For people running large Oracle or DB2 databases on IBM xSeries or Dell Poweredge servers, this is what they need.
His quote carries on with "There will be no third distribution that will be supported by the large IT vendors". I saw HP were supporting Debian while Bruce Perens was there, but now looking on the HP site everywhere it is RedHat or Suse.
There's definitely going to be more desktop linux vendors, but a lot of them still ride on top of Redhat or Debian, and again a lot of them cater for specific markets.
The funny thing is that I actually did try Suse the other day. I downloaded and burned their "Live CD" as part of a lecture. I was very impressed at how well it worked. It really was a no fuss deal. Like you I'll put up with a little meglomania for that. What harm can he really do to free softare? Who really needs large IT vendors? The future is free.
He also says lots of good stuff too. He slams SCO and easily dances around all their FUD. He's creating value and sees himself as a big institutional player. Good for him. No free softare based system can be as ugly or as abusive as Microsoft was.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
So, lookes like SeSE has found SCO's secret stash, and/or borrowed Steve Jobs's reality distortion field.
Mandrake makes a decent all-around box (server or desktop), Slackware makes a great server, Debian has its' following, etc.
It doesn't matter whether Red Hat and SUSE are most popular right now, maybe they deserve to be.
What's most important is that with Linux there is no way that they can prevent any other company that decides to step up and bring a distro to market.
This fact will keep them on their toes via the omnipresent shadow of the unknown competitor just around the corner and it means that even if they decide to abandon Linux ten years from now, any of the other distros can come in a take up the slack.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
While many vendors do support other distributions than the big two (RH & SuSE) this is mostly on the desktop. Support on the server side for large servers is pretty much restricted to these two. This is true for hardware also If you want support for larger SMP's, SAN, etc there are not many drivers for other distros. Usually you can just go ahead and try, but if something does not work the support line will tell you to replace your distro xxx with RH/SuSE where thei support it.
I've been involved in quite a few new Linux customer projects. All the time third party software (Oracle, SAP, DB2, etc) was involved as well. The only distros which are *certified* to run this stuff are Rh and SuSE. And customers do want certified installations !
Personally I'm happily running debian and gentoo, but I haven't come across commercial installation of these distributions yet.
Markus
Can anyone speculate why scox stock is up 21% today (to 12.66)?
After seeing all the outraged comments on here ("Waddyamean he thinks my copy of Gentoo isn't a distro?!"), I'm surprised, because I think he's right (at least, in terms of corporate distros). Before any holy warriors mod me down for saying this, I should provide a disclaimer...OK...here goes...I am a distro bigot, and I would never use anything but Slackware (if it's my decision to make), because all the major distros are disgustingly bloated. Slackware -- it rocks. RH/SuSE/etc -- they suck. Just the facts, ma'am. *ducks*
Now that we've got that important fact out of the way, let's look at Oracle. Last I checked, Slackware, Gentoo, and other distros that lean further toward the hobbyist/programmer/hacker end of things were not supported by Oracle -- it was only SuSE and RedHat. It's not just Oracle -- as a general rule, if you find some proprietary software that they're trying to make a Linux port of, and they name a distro, it's about 90% likely to "support" RedHat and maybe 40% likely to "support" SuSE.
Reason for the quotes around "support" would be that most of the time, a specific distro is not needed. It's the same kernel and most of the same FS setup (well, Slackware's init scripts are a little bit bett^H^H^H^Hdifferent, since they follow BSD instead of SysV). However, naming the distro supplies a corporation with the perfect ass-covering if it's something their tech-support hasn't been trained on. "What, you don't use RedHat? Well, I'm sorry, but we can't support your software. Even though you paid us $5,000 this quarter for gold-level support. It's broken -- you fix it."
It comes of picking something very specific to train $6.50/hr helpdesk personnel who aren't likely to investigate and learn a new distro. Plus a reason I can sympathize a bit more with: If the customer is breathing down the company's neck to fix this problem that they had with a homebrew distro some BOFH in the customer's IT dept. crafted, it will cost a lot of time, money, and perhaps contracts (as the customer gets more impatient) to get it fixed. Better to go with an extremely common standard, even though they are the lowest common denominator in terms of distros.
So I agree -- to the corporate world, there are only SuSE and RedHat distros. The rest just aren't supported.
There's no sig like this sig anywhere near this sig, so this must be the sig.
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"!
"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."
Tough to argue with that.
"Anyone that has ever gotten an idea based on any of my work and done something better with it-good for you."--J.Carmack
...All press about the management of Lindows, points towards them being interested in bettering linux. Mandrake caters to it's consumers and redhat is a company that gives back to it's community. Suse seems to be out only for their benefit and while they might make a good product, I don't want to support their business style....
Sorry to rain on your parade, but you're into serious bullshitting territory here.
SuSE (~300 employees) has a subtancial amount of fulltime developers programming OSS day-in and day-out. They pretty much did Alsa by themselves, they did something like 90% of United Linux and they are the ones in the market offering the biggest value for the least money. They've translated big parts of the linux documentation into german and offer a solid service that goes beyond just having a cardboard box. A box with the largest paperdocumentation on a linux distro, I might add. Shure SuSE wants to make a buck, but stating that they're only focusing on their benefit and not giving back anything of substance is just plain silly.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
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.