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Novell Not Pushing Ximian Onto SuSE
dhunley writes "According to TechCentral, a recent story on Novell's plans following the acquisition of both SuSE and Ximian comments that 'SuSE will continue (to operate) as a business unit of its own', according to John Phillips, Novell's corporate technology strategist for the Asia Pacific region. 'We don't expect to make Ximian the default user interface, and for the medium term KDE will remain the default GUI on SuSE Linux'."
Hand in hand with *BSD, Novell is a dead man walking. Look at the market share decrease they suffered over the past 10-15 years. It's a wonder their Board of Directors hasn't started pacing down the Green Mile yet.
I think the biggest problem companies have in making linux profitable is how to mix free software with software you have to buy, and how to make the user comfortable with their choices. The problem is that it is hard for them to justify buying something when it is freely available.
As a loyal SuSE user, I'm happy because KDE default appeals to me (mostly cause its a more mature project). Sure, its a couple clicks during install to switch, but its good that Novell looks at the SuSE crowd and keeps SuSE like it always has been.
Of course, YMMV.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I am sad to see that SuSE will not have to improve their support for GNOME. SuSE has great features in their distribution, but their support for GNOME has been constantly lagging behind others. I was hoping that by being encouraged to put Ximian as the default desktop, their support for GNOME would improve.
I am trying to set up all my systems without Qt (I don't mind KDE, but I don't want Qt and for the moment this means no KDE either). Unfortunately, all basic GNOME libs in SuSE depend on Qt (same for the basic X11 setup). This problem has existed since 7.2, I think. Ignoring the dependencies gives me a working system anyway, but I hope that they will fix this soon. I had high hopes when I saw Novell acquiring both Ximian and SuSE, but it looks like I will still have to wait a bit...
I understand that it is probably good for Novell to not rock the boat too much rught away. But, can someone with a little more market savvy explain what is in Novell's best interest in the long run? Give the users lots of choices with loose integration? or eliminate some of those choices and work on more tightly integrated line?
considering the support and work SuSE put in KDE in the past, it'd be a shame to become Ximian-centric.
Now, all that's left is for SuSE to integrate with Ximian as well as it does with KDE. And then, well frankly, there will be no opponent to SuSE domination on desktops.
Now if only SuSE were to have a ports-like package management tool and taking NDS from Novell for granted, there will be no competition, from the Linux world or otherwise...
/. Where the truth
Agreed. It is interesting (to me anyway) to note this bit of news of Novells front page.
You've misunderstood the integration work. The effect is in fact the total opposite. The work means they can use KDE for most things and cherry pick any apps they want from Ximian and they will integrate nicely into the desktop. That said, we (KDE) aren't standing still, so the number of apps they choose to do this for is likely to me small.
What this means is that Novell will have experts in developing for both KDE and Gnome desktops.
This makes good sense for them at this point. If one ends up winning over the other in "market share" the will adapt easily. If both keep having a good following of users, they still win.
This was just a rumor from my Netware guru friends, but I believe when version 7.0 of Netware comes out they will have an option of using a Netware or Linux Kernel. Then after 7.0 will be linux only. Novell just released there Nterprise Linux Services, which gives a lot of the current functionality of Netware on Linux
I recall working on native Novell products about 10 years ago don't relish back in the day of creating and managing Netware 2.x or 3.x user accounts on each server (with each server requiring its own login authentication). When Micro$loth introduced the NT domain model that raised the bar significantly for NOS'es. Following that Novell came out with Directory Services. That was the first and seemingly last great advance that they made.
As is echoed in other posts on this topic, most of Novell's headlines have involved mismanaging acquisitions. WordPerfect, UNIXWare, ad nauseum. I am almost afraid to see what becomes of the Linux companies they will be absorbing into their quagmire.
Look at how they could take a stable, logical product like NetWare and fail to market it effectively enough to grab what it deserved. They finally moved beyond unstable NLM's crashing and core dumping but what new customers noticed?
I'm sorry - I must take exception to these "hate" comments -
People who are trained exclusively on Windows should not be *expected* to get Novell, just as people who are trained exclusively on Linux can't see the bright spots in Windows. Novell is a very top-down system--because of this, it takes more time, more thought & more design to really get the system built properly. But as in engineering, the harder it is to build a system the harder it is to tear it down. Contrasted with Windows which grew from a bottom-up approach--it has its strengths, but scalability & mission-critical reliability was never a design goal. Ease of use was.
Windows has gotten a LOT better in the past few years--so much so that the differences between Netware & Windows have become, at least on the surface, negligible. We have many clients running pure Microsoft networks... but for me, I'm clinging to Netware & GroupWise for my own network as long as there's still some life left in those products--they give me tons of features and none of the headaches associated with supporting a pure-Microsoft environment. Their software is *still* better-engineered than most of what else is out there. It just takes time & effort to understand it--you really have to dig into it and get an idea of WHY they made certain design choices--once you do, you can set up a Novell-based system that runs rings around any Microsoft-based network. Compared to Windows, where things are just slapped together & pushed through until they work "well enough."
What ever happened to the "geek" mentality for going out and finding this information on your own? I see lots of blanket statements about how "Novell sucks" or "Microsoft sucks" but usually not a lot of concrete evidence to back these claims up. Everything has its purpose--if you have a knee-jerk reaction to something maybe it's a sign that you need to go invest some time in learning about it before letting the rest of the world know you don't have all of the information?
And yes - I think Novell, maybe, can do a bang-up job with these recent aquisitions. I just hope they don't screw up the marketing end of it like they have so many times in the past.
Well, if practically all other *commercial* distros are KDE-centric and Red Hat has also decided to stay away from desktop-user market, wouldn't supporting Gnome alongside KDE provide SuSe an additional good sales argument? Also, for some reason the large corporate Linux "supporters" seem to prefer Gnome so why should supporting it result in a painful death? Wouldn't any distro company with serious world-conquering plans want to support both of the major desktop environments at this stage to "be there" if/when one of them makes a serious breakthrough? Can you elaborate a little on your arguments for Gnome equalling death?
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
Since SuSE is controlled by Novell, it is highly likely that SuSE will drop KDE at some point in the future. Novell might already be on the path to phasing KDE out. Novell may deny any such plans, but name one corporation that has publically admitted something that may be criticized by users.
;) ). If you don't think so, come back in 2006 and we'll see who is right (I'll be around)...
It makes no sense from a business point of view to support two desktops. CEOs will certainly notice the extra costs of supporting two. Chopping one desktop may be the fastest way to generate extra profits. Of course, it will happen over a long period of time (say 2 years).
I predict that KDE will be dropped from SuSE (and other commercial linux distributions) by 2006--you heard it here first (ok maybe not
What's MY opinion on this? Well, there are advantages and disadvantages--like all things in life. KDE is the better desktop on linux. It is more polished, has more features, easier to use, similar to Windows, etc. Dumping KDE will mean the loss of those advantages (although Gnome would catch up in 2 years once Novell pumps resources into it). I personally like KDE better than Gnome (it is also the default in Mandrake Linux).
The upside is that linux will have ONE solid desktop (other window managers don't count). Some may dislike the lack of choice but splitting resources across multiple projects is a complete waste. Instead of having applications for one or the other, future developers will be able to write applications tailored for Gnome. This should significantly improve the quality of desktop applications. Right now, one pretty much has to use both KDE and Gnome applications. I use KDE (Mandrake 9.1) and probably 20% of hte applications are Gnome, 50% KDE, rest are neither*. This creates inconsistencies, poorer quality, more documentation, and so forth. If everyone used one desktop, it would eliminate this**.
* When I say neither, I'm basically counting applications that don't have a Gnome or KDE "look". Some of these applications actually use the libraries for Gnome and KDE (so technically it belongs to KDE or Gnome).
** Of course, there is a potential that having one desktop could result in stagnation and reduction in innovation. I personally don't think that will be a major problem at this point in time. If linux is successful, that problem wil only be faced 10 years from now, when some developer will be cursing at the desktop and its SDK because the desktop has become a monopoly.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
Namely, to capitalize off Novell's good name. If Novell just intends to push another distro, let it be an unchanged SuSe. If however they want to make inroads on the corporate desktop, first the product should market under the Novell name. Second that product should be break the traditional distro paradigm of overwhelming choice. Overwhelming choice is not a selling point if you are pitching the corporate desktop. Far far better to narrow the range of applications available when going after this market. Not only is the support load easier for yourself and your clients, it is satisfying the market's (albeit wrong) perception that there is an unnecesary amount of choice in Linux distros.
Fighting this resistance with the oft repeated mantra that choice is good has not led to a sweeping corporate dekstop penguination, I suggest perhaps it is time to give consideration to an alternate paradigm. Remove the choice. Hell, even if I don't agree with package x over package y, I don't need to make those selections, nor do I need to worry about custom install scripts, etc. etc. When was the last time Windows was left out of consideration for a desktop OS because of the lack of choices, or even the lack of intelligent defaults?
This notional distro needs to throw out most of the preconceptions distro maintainers have to live with. First, you aren't building a distro for generic_linux_zealot. You're building a distro for generic_company_desktop. The assumptions should be different. GLZ wants his favorite #EDITOR, but since $EDITOR is potentially different for each and every GLZ, you include every editor. Not so for GCD, for this user the text editor isn't nearly as critical, they'll rarely use it. So, the criteria is mutated, rather than trying to meet a given users preference, which led to the proliferation of editor packages in a standard distro, you select a single text editor. I would further suggest that the editor you select be very easy to learn (for the average corporate user, remember, so emacs is out.) and for bonus points, you hack it to honor all the standard windoze keyboard shortcuts, as a tool to ease experienced windoze users into the transition. In point of fact, your biggest detractors among your user base in a windoze shop are the 3% of people who know how to use the keyboard shortcuts within windoze. The rest of the complaints, by and large are fluff. But this compaint isn't, it drastically affects the productivity of users who make use of such "power user" techniques. LISTEN TO THEM, they make a valid point.
Lastly, narrowing the application selection allows tighter integration of the selected applications. This provides another value add to your application selections. Further, it makes feasible development of a comprehensive in-line help program (available through F1, natch) which would give the central help access to all the standard applications on the machine through one unified interface.
The biggest part of the problem is that to the typical linux zealot the requirements are anethma. No, actually the biggest part of the problem is that linux zealots lack an appreciation for the other viewpoint. Your average Linux zealot will tell you (and I'm sure someone will reply to this) that eliminating choices is wrong. Well, if you tell that to the corporate world, all you are doing is telling them that Linux isn't going to work for them. If, however we give them what they think they want, and make sure it operates as we know it should, isn't everyone a winner?
There is a smug superiority in the Linux world about these issues. I'm not saying that those attitudes aren't necessarily correct, once all is said and done. I am saying that those attitudes will keep us from
"Talk minus action equals nothing" - Joey Shithead, D.O.A.
"Talk minus action equals