Novell To Open Source SUSE

jambarama writes "Newsforge reports Novell will be open sourcing SUSE professional under the name OpenSUSE. Is Novell following in the footsteps of Red Hat Inc., with its Fedora Core Linux distribution, or continuing its own open source policy as it has in the past as with YAST?" Note that it looks like the opensuse.org site is not yet up.

Comments

A feasible business model

[guaigean]

This is probably one of the best moves Novell can make for both themselves and the OSS community. As Linux gains popularity, corporations are wanting to move to open source apps, but want corporate backing and support. This gives Novell the flexibility of both tracks, and offers another stable solution for enterprise level business.

Re:A feasible business model

[Karzz1]

This is probably one of the best moves Novell can make for both themselves and the OSS community.

I couldn't agree more. I was a longtime RedHat customer/user. I liked that, at my option, I could download and use RH Linux for free or, if I needed support or felt like supporting RH I could buy the boxed version. As a matter of fact I had a RH Network subscription (bought by me personally as a show of support) that, when RH changed all their versioning around, I got stiffed on about 6 months worth of. As a result, and after bad experiences with Fedora core on my servers (least of which is no upgrade path) I have had no qualms about using CentOS in production. With SuSE basically going back to the licensing model that RH had in the past, and being a former SuSE user, I am inclined to look at SuSE again.

Re:A feasible business model

[mpapet]

You are making a few assumptions:

1. Binary compatibility. It seems likely to me that they would make the two versions incompatible. They need to have a clear distinction between the two versions. Binary INcompatibility is that distinction.

2. Novell makes the right product. They could screw up a great distro by having a license/revenue/feature package that the market doesn't like. It's easier to screw this up than you think.

3. Novell actually offers something that will drive enterprise consumers over to their product from RH. So far, they are a me-too product with lots of potential given their back-end stuff.

4. The battle for systems management tools is on and Novell's a likely loser. MS and RH don't want them in their market. They'll likely get screwed by both firms when they buddy-up somehow. Sun will probably throw a couple of punches in as well.

interest gone?

[Shinaku]

I help out occasionally on a Linux help IRC channel, and looking through the logs I've seen that the amount of people using SuSE has dropped considerably while the amount of people using Ubuntu has risen exponentially.

Maybe they're opening it up to compete with Ubuntu?

Re:interest gone?

[ckaminski]

Or maybe us suse users just don't need help since it "just works?"

This sounds like a good step but...

[Zweideutig]

Where is the profit for Novell? I presume Novell will still charge for the media and support of course, but is that enough? I think a non-profit organization should be created to continue the develop of Suse (susa). Now that Mandrake is gone (Mandriva,) an opensource beginner-friendly dsitribution ought to help fill the gap. Disclaimer: I use the *BSDs on servers and Debian, Gentoo and Slackware on the desktop, but Suse may be a good option others.

Re:Crappy software never dies...

[Zweideutig]

Just because you are using Gentoo now and you think Suse is too "n00b" for you, it doesn't mean it is "crappy." You and me like *BSD or Solaris instead of Linux altogether, or Debian, Gentoo, or Slackware, that is great for us and serves us well. But Suse is still good for person across the street that just sends e-mail and reads online news, and wants something relatively easy to use, but without the hassle of spyware. You don't want to teach them how to use something like Gentoo do you?

Known, Successful Business Model

[mpapet]

They will do exactly like RH because it appears to be profitable.

It's difficult to see how this makes them an actual meaningful competitor to RH though.

It will be interesting to see if they drop java in the forthcoming project. In 9.3 they distribute it on the cd. They pay Sun for this priviledge, so I find it hard to believe they would be so charitable in the future.

It's sad (predictable though) that Linux is going this way. The open project portion is essentially free development and testing for the corporate parent. The "open" portions of the distros are becoming the red-headed stepchild to the supported version.

Please, no comments about how CentOS is "the same" as whatever RH product they got it from. Service, service, service is what makes it different.

Charge a fortune for something that's free and the world will beat a path to your door.

iso

[Anonymous Coward]

Being able to download the fully installable ISO images will be great.

Huh. The ISO images are available now. When did that happen ?
ftp://mirrors.kernel.org/suse/i386/9.3/iso/

Now I CAN tell people to use something better than Fedora Core.

Re:The real question: binary compatibility

[CdBee]

Technical binary compatibility is an irrelevance if Mr.Average User can't get his application to install. Maybe it is possible to convert an RPM to a DEB and install it with Apt-get or one of its front-ends but again that's further than most users want to go just to get a pre-compiled app running.

Novell has made a good move

[ehaggis]

As an avid user and fan of SuSE, I am glad to see Novell has a plan for it. Downloading the "opensource" version has been dificult and not very friendly. Only a small download was available with online package installations. I was starting to worry.

Now,... um... even MORE open source!

[millermj]

If I'd seen this before it went public I would have e-mailed the on-duty editor saying that there's a major problem with the headline. So let's clear the air and get the announcement right --

Novell's announcement was not that they're open sourcing SUSE. SUSE is already GPL. Novell is essentially announcing this:

The goal of OpenSUSE is to create a community-supported distribution similar to Fedora. Also, like Fedora, this becomes a code base that the developers of the commercially-supported distributions can pull from.

Re:Is it just me?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's wrong with the ISOs (both CDs and DVD) of SUSE Pro 9.3 being available? *sigh*

Re:switch to suse

[KillShill]

aren't those the "warez" versions?

infringing the copyright of a linux distribution is awfully naughty.

Re:switch to suse

[Wannabe Code Monkey]

And just felt stupid trying to get a pirated version of a linux distro. if this pans out I will definitely give it a chance.

Well you should feel even stupider, SUSE Professional is already free. It's Enterprise which costs money.

Re:You are forgetting something...

[Greg_D]

Man, someone better go out and tell CompUSA to close down their stores, because apparently they haven't heard the bad news, yet!

The average user does indeed install a lot of applications on his own. He installs Firefox. He installs Zone Alarm. He installs Office. He installs anti-virus software. he installs games and filesharing programs and iTunes and a ton of other things.

He installs them because they're easy to install.

Unless you're talking about Linux. Then, may God bless his poor little soul, because if he doesn't have synaptic or smart set up properly, he's going to be SOL.

Re:The real question: binary compatibility

[Chandon Seldon]

but if there's a problem, then linux makes win3.1 dll hell look like a paradise. even linux experts feel massively frustrated and helpless in that situation.

As a self proclaimed Linux Expert, I'm really not sure what you're getting at.

In my usage, 98% of the time when I want a package it's in the package repositiory of the distro I'm using, installs without a hitch, and works perfectly.

The remaining 2% breaks down like this:

• Installs from source. This works the same on Windows, so there's no difference here. The class of Windows users who don't need to know about this don't need to know about it on Linux either. Hell, it's easier on Linux - if you disagree go build a source package from CVS on Windows. Firefox, OpenOffice, Gimp, and Gaim are examples of packaged heavily used on Windows with source packages and CVS archives available.
• Installs from broken packages. This has never happened to me on a stable distribution, and the package has been fixed in the repository within 24 hours on unstable distros every time. No Windows junky would be terribly suprized if they had trouble installing something random... say Lotus Notes... on the new Longhorn beta - it's not a stable release.

Pretty simply, the package + repository system is way cleaner than anything Windows has, and any claims of "nightmare dependancy situations" are probably the result of users intentionally doing things the hard way rather than using offical packages from their distributor.

It's like if a Windows user copied a friend's "C:\Program Files\Front Page" directory to their computer and complained it didn't work rather than using an installer - possible, but I'm sure as hell not going to give you any sympathy if you don't get it to work.

Re:Flunks the real world test

[Chandon Seldon]

But woe to you when the open source component doesn't have an easy installer.

On Linux, the easy things are easy. The moderatly difficult things are reasonably simple. The hard things are hard, but possible.

On Windows, the easy things are easy. Some of the moderatly difficult things are also easy. If it's not easy, it's a horrible nightmare.