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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.
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?
While I'd much prefer the latter, I'm betting that the former possibility is much more probable. However, either option would be just fine, provided that the new OpenSuSE is binary-compatible with SuSE Professional.
From TFA:From this excerpt, it seems that Novell doesn't intend to make the two binary-incompatible, as Red Hat did with Fedora and RHEL. I certainly hope they don't change their minds on this.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
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.
Microsoft Sucks, F/OSS Rocks. I get mod points now right?
All they're doing is opening the development process to be something more like Fedora.
-linuxrocks123
My opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer. This is not legal advice.
"There's no need for red-hot pokers. Hell is -- other people!"
-Jean Paul Sartre
I currently have been using kubuntu because it has proven to be the most user friendly KDE distro, for free (full version, no eval). I have tried suse before and enjoyed it, but I did not like having eval versions and such. 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.
Open sourcing a linux distro that contains Open Source Software (OSS). What an interesting concept. Did Novell take a patent on this? Will Microsoft be the doing the same thing? What about SCO?
to be or not to be.
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?
--
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.
Powered by caffeine and sugar; BSD
Ive downloaded the last couple versions of SuSe professional from their ftp servers, both before and after Novell bought them. What exactly is changing here other than some retarded "open" naming.. Is Novell getting scared about something and think they need some extra advertising today??
Somebody pre-slashdotted the opensuse link. I know one of you did it. Probably one of those grimy subscribers Fess up!
You should mod me up right now.
or not.
...it just gets open-sourced.
This story was on Digg long before it got put on slashdot. Is slashdot an inferior system for speedy news?
Anyone else notice that the domain opensuse.org is registered to the caped crusader himself?
This signature has Super Cow Powers
Ah yes, follow the RH model, and let the community do all the work.* All the while cutting European jobs.
*Plus the quality will suffer.
In other news, Debian and Gentoo is also creating an "open source" versions of their respective OS's.
:-)
Oh... Wait a minute...
Am I sensing a license infringement cover up somewhere in here...
As this develops, news on the announcement as well as blogs from the SuSE community (and staffers) discussing it will be on Planet SuSE.
Listening for the sound of the coming rain...
they should make a linux distribution called Asspumptu or GayDE.
Does this mean SUSE Pro's going to end up like so many distros...a half baked OS with errors, for which no corporation is responsible?
I gladly paid (and would continue to pay) for SUSE regularly because I knew I would get one of the most compatible, well tested and fairly up to date distributions that wasn't enterprise grade. Where will I go for solid release if OpenSUSE goes the way of Fedora Core 4?
In completely unrelated news, I'm sure, Novell has announced layoffs of over 100 employees in Europe. Begs the question, is Novell trying to improve SuSe development with a community development model ala Red Hat, or is Novell Cutting SuSe loose?
Yast in the past was twice as fast,
as suse on the loose with juice,
but the smell will tell
if novell has done well,
or if redhat has gotten their goose.
(with apologies to seuss)
Starsucks
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.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
One of SuSE's biggest problem is they gave every excuse in the book (without stating the obvious about driving folks buy the boxed sets) about producing an ISO image for installing. The boot/FTP thing was a pain in the ass, the 'live' disks are not for someone using it normally. You could build your own image, but it was not easy. If anything comes out of the 'open' version, I hope it is distribution for install on one or more disks.
And, as long ask I'm dreaming - wouldn't it be nice to see a distribution get the minimal or basic installation only requires one (possibly two) CDs? I am so very tired of downloading five or more CDs just because they packaged 20megs of required files on each and every CD.
Not that I'm bitter...
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
Now finally the community might have a chance to make and totally apt based SuSE.
Currently it is possible http://linux01.gwdg.de/apt4rpm/ to have apt run on top of an existing SuSE but not as the default installation medium. I feel that apt is the one thing that stand in between of SuSE and perfection.
The current (YaST/RPM) based solution is not too bad, but it is just too slow. Seaches in the package database take ages. And, iirc, it cannot do multiple downloads at the same time.
Right now im installing SuSE 9.3 from the default http site. I thought it was released to the public more than a weak ago, but it still is not on the mirrors. It right now is about to take 6 hours to download 1.3 gig of packages. amazing.
but afterall i still feel suse is the best (most polished) desktop distro arround.
im looking forward to what this move will bring us.
cies breijs.
In theory anyway.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Funny, I'm a SuSE 9.2 pro user on laptop as well as my main home server, but I'm trying to think what other than some device drivers are still closed. They already open sourced YAST & iFile, what else is there?
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.
I've used several Linux distros in various work environments: Debian, Red Hat, Slackware, Gentoo, etc. It wasn't till my new job that I was forced to work with SuSE. Frankly, SuSE is one of the shittiest NIH-prone distributions I've ever had the displeasure of working with.
/etc/rc.d/boot.local (aka rc.local on other distros). The file is empty except for comments, but still they have explicit copyright notices, all rights reserved. The comments explaining what the file does are in broken English.
One of my co-workers says that SuSE's problem is that it's too German. I have to agree with him.
If you don't know what you're doing, SuSE may be of use to you. But if you're a power user who enjoys consistency and tradition, steer clear of SuSE.
One of my favorite examples of SuSE's excessive Germanness is their
In Fedora, rc.local has a simple comment in plain English describing how to use the file. And since it's an essentially empty file, they graciously leave out ridiculous copyright statements (obviously because they weren't IP-Nazi Germans).
Also, boot.local is executed before going into the first run level. Whereas on other distros, rc.local is run at the end, after all other init scripts.
-=/\- Jizzbug -/\=-
Nice, except SuSE isn't pronounced like Seuss. It's pronounced Zoo-zuh, approximately(/zu:z@/ in SAMPA)
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
java/j2ee stuff for one
I was wondering what would happen when SuSE got up to 10.0...
Mac OS 9 went to Mac OS X and cay names.
Red Hat 9 went to Fedora Core 1.
Mandrake and Conectiva 10 merged and went to Mandriva 2005.
Clearly, SuSE 10.x was doomed... though I seriously expected it to become Novell Linux 1 or Novel Linux 2006 or something.
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.
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
What needs to happen next is all the RPM-based distros need to merge their development trees and package sets under the umbrella of the Fedora Foundation (returning home from whence they all sprang years ago).
The inconsistency between Linux distros is ridiculous and inexcusable (especially for the all-too-German SuSE).
RPM-based Distros Unite!
-=/\- Jizzbug -/\=-
it was us german heise.de users.
It was a clear heiseDOS.
Am I the only one that gets his news well before Slashdot on http://www.digg.com/?
:)
Go ahead and mod me troll.
Each processor would proceed sequentially as if it had been better for them not to rise against Saul.
what the hell is wrong with X11 and matrox mystiques? It's not like it's a winmodem. Oh, sure, it'll recognize the 1mb trident, but I'd like a little more than 640x480@256.
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
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.
Did anyone bother to ask the customers what they want?
You mean the name was has not already been taken by a porn site? Cool!
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
We just evaluated a bunch of distributions for standardization, including all the SuSE varients (Novell Linux Desktop, SuSE Enterprise Server). Professional was the easiest to install for our development environment on a variety of different platforms (laptop, high end workstation, regular enterprise PC). The price was by far the most agressive as well.
In contrast, the price of Red Hat was really quite shocking. 299 US$ for a workstation? Some of the freeware distros wouldn't even install. You have to question if some of the shoddy freeware distributions are a good idea - they are just amunition for MS.
Meh.
"Mr. Average User" doesn't install applications. Most people use whatever comes with the computer, and if they need anything else, they get a "computer-literate" friend or relative to perform the highly complex task of sticking in the CD and clicking "OK" a few times.
no problem, the whole thing should be spoken with heavy german accent anyway in tribute to SuSE's origins, and thus all the 's' pronounced like 'z', and trailing silent e's made vocal as schwa.
I wander what kind of community image they'll have? Maybe they can make it seem more fun and weird as opposed to Fedora, which feels very cool and hacker-like.
random underscore blankspace at ya know hoo dot comedy.
Excuse my ignorance but can someone please explain to me how a Linux distribution was not Open Source in the first place?
Or is it only the kernel that requires this?
SuSe is already Open Source all they are doing is going to allow the community to drive the package selection, organization, etc... I just hope that unlike Red Hat they do a little better at listening to the community. I also think this article could have been worded better. Hmmm Open Sourcing an already Open Source Product, News at 9. :-)
Kosh: "Understanding is a 3 edged sword, your side, their side, the Truth."
Is it:
soo-see
soo-suh
soo-zee
Is there one that is "official"?
Mandrake mini Ubuntu Kubuntu Knoppix DSL Puppy ...
Oh well, what the hell...
Why add the tagline "depends on your definition" ? Is the point of the article to incite a Free vs. Free definition flamewar? Is the merit of a Slashdot thread measured in the number of RMS references?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
gay
Well I hope this works for SuSE but there are two other questions behind it all. First, Novell's financial situation doesn't look any too rosy and I wonder whether the existence of an OpenSuSE is really going to make much difference to customers looking for solid long-term support.
Second, the lines are becoming more distinct now, between what one might call community-based open source (planet Debian et al) and commercial-based open source (SuSE, Fedora, Mandriva, etc). It's far from certain that the commercial model will prevail over the community one even though the commercial outfits monopolize the headlines.
In many ways, the best help Linux users can give would be to move over to planet Debian, and start using distros the Wall Street mob can never get their mitts on. For a poorly funded school, hospital, local government outfit or similar, Red Hat or SuSE dangling corporate support contracts probably doesn't look very different from Microsoft to a harassed manager on a shoestring budget.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
... but in case someone is confused by your post:
If you want to pay for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (in one of three flavours ) then you'll get full support and a long, steady release cycle.
If you want a completely no-cost OS then you can use Red Hat Fedora. It has a quick release cycle, lots of exciting add on packages maintained by the community in the Extras repositories and a very aggressive incorporation of new features.
Don't go confusing RHEL and RH Fedora.
Unlike SuSE, Red Hat has always been scrupulous about releasing under the GPL all their code for the distro (with the exception of the build-system). They've never had proprietary tools like YaST. I'm glad to see that SuSE is now fuly embracing the path of openness. Hopefully it will mean that there'll be real competition between two fully Free distros with nothing distinguishing them except technical merit.
I think your explanation sounds great in theory but it flunks the real-world test. MS software installs pretty easily these days and brings along all the libs it needs. Or, if the app doesn't get all the libraries necessary, WIndowsUpdate does.
I don't like the fact Linux apps install rougher, but they do.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
Right now im installing SuSE 9.3 from the default http site. I thought it was released to the public more than a weak ago, but it still is not on the mirrors. It right now is about to take 6 hours to download 1.3 gig of packages. amazing.
In YAST, simply add an alternate download location. The link is only one of many choices. And it's been there since April, from what I can tell.
As with most mirrors, this can help download times a lot.
not in an intuitionistic context .... ;)
-linuxrocks123
I know your password!
I just downloaded the ISO images the other day for Suse 9.3 and installed it. It is one DVD or 5 CD's, but it appears to be the entire Pro installation. They delay releasing the cost-free, non-"live" version for something like 6 weeks after the actual release. I imagine this delay is what will be eliminated.
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
Why are you using an archaic OS like Linux anyway? OS X is everything Linux ever was and 10 million things more. More secure. Faster. Easier to configure. Simpler to use.
Simply better.
Simply OS X.
...I will still likely stay with FC3 for production, FC4 to play with pending it going to production, and various RH for servers as soon as I get some more money to send down to Raleigh.
I will say this... they need a better mascot. The Red Hat fedora is just plain cooler, imho. The SuSE lizard looks like it is high or something and the name just brings back this inane taunt line of Wimp Lo's in Kung Pow: Enter the Fist, "I rock. And roll. All day long. Sweet Suzy."
But I will try not to let that stop me from giving it a chance somewhere. I mean, if I can get past the horrors of Motif, the idiocy of Vi, and still use *nix OSes...
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
SuSE has always seemed a little to corporate for F/OSS, there were probably many people who were confused about exactly what the licensing terms were. Releasing evaluation versions could have also contributed to reluctance on the part of noobs to give it a try. Hopefully they will bake cd images available on opensuse and clear up some of the confusion
Get your torrents...
I love SUSE. I just wish I could get it to work with VMWare. Redhat works great, but SUSE (for me) crashes during installation.
I love being able to be working in Windows, and just "pop up" Linux when I want it without rebooting.
Anonymous Cowards suck.
O' SuSE Anna, don't you cry for me. I come from Alabama with a disto on my er' laptop. SLES (Enterprise Server) is supposed to make money for Novell. The spreading popularity of an fully open source version may be expected to help promote the enterprise version.
{ return clarity; }
So as more and more companies jump on the community bandwagon, will the community of communities be big enough to help them all out? How many people actually take part in an OSS community project? Is that number still rising? Won't it become more and more difficult to attract more people to a project like this?
Fricken SWEEET! SUSE has long been my favorite distro... this means it has a good chance of getting even better. Now if we could just resolve this little DVD playback on Linux thing.
MadOgre.com
...merging the best of Slackware, Ubuntu, Debian and Gentoo, I give you SLUDGE 1.0.
"Made up/misattributed quote that makes me look smart. I am on
It doesn't matter how you pronounce it, as long as you don't mention the war. I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it.
In an unexpected move that has taken the blogscape by storm, open-source operating system SuSE Linux has now gone... wait for it... OPEN SOURCE OFMG WFT HAX !!@##312
I'll bet the sucke^H^H^Hbscribers are feeling pretty stupid for paying for access to shit like this.
SuSE
Software- und System-Entwicklung
which translates into Software- and System-Development
"Nimis exaltatus rex sedet in vertice - caveat ruinam!"
Open doesn't mean free. Java source is open, you can take it and recompile it on your platform, at your own risk and with no support from Sun. What you can't do is modify it. It is not free as in freedom.
Depending on the specific SuSE distribution (Novell Linux Desktop, SuSE Linux Enterprise Server, SuSE Professional) you'll find included components that are not open source such as the Java Runtime Environment, Acrobat Reader, Opera, Real Player and others.
To the best of my knowledge and making it clear that what I say here does not represent Novell and I am not a lawyer, I believe you are not legally allowed to redistribute SuSE (at least not if you keep copies).
You can read about this in a post I made in my weblog a week ago.
As for the rest of what you say, I really don't know but my guess is that Open SuSE is all about allowing more community participation in the development process. For instance, public bugtracking (yes, I know about bugzilla.novell.com), public development mailing lists, etc..
your mom's not free as in freedom.
Will it be named OpenLinux? :)
A free version of suse pro has always been available
its just being renamed to opensuse, if i member correctly, you had to download an iso
and boot on that cd and install off the net.
I just hope they dont transfer control of
decision making, on features to the community. Face it there has to be an authority with proven
skills to be able to dictate what works in practical life and other wise
I purchased every version of suse pro from 8.0 as
a personal show of support for the superb
distro, I never had a problem with it.. If not for anything
Reiserfs rocks !!, I yet have to see it break , had
power failures , my kid pressing comp power buttons for play etc. still worked.
I don't have to click an agreement box before I get to see Sun source anymore? If I do than it's not open source.
advanced users know to steer-clear of commercialized distros.
SuSE was the 1st distro I used when trying to learn linux (from a windows state of mind), but there came a point in time that I was too restricted to thier compilation of programs, and hideous package management system (Yast2, *shrug*).
Package Managers are great for lazy windows migrants, but not for production environments.
A Linux Production Environment should be built from the ground-up, not jumbled into a CD loaded with EVERYTHING and then stripped-down.
Not everyone will agree, but most should.
Slackware and Debian are the only commercial distros I'd suggest using, for a (linux) production environment.
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
See:
s p
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1843097,00.a
Steven
Suse is already open source. The pro version only adds a few commerical programs and drivers that you don't get on the download versions.
What this really means is that they are axing the Retail Product that no one buys to focus on the server and workstation versions for corporation. Gee have we not seen this before in Fedora/Red Hat?
I'm a big fan of Suse and have used it for years but I haven't bought a copy since 9.0.
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
Who'd a thunk it?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Or even better, the community might come to its senses and use Debian ... I heard rumours that apt already works there :-)
(Note: This is a joke! Nothing against SuSE)
SLES != Suse Professional. One is the server version, the other is the desktop version. Same difference as RHEL and (now) Fedora. The server versions tend to be behind the latest releases by a bit and are qualified (with a certain set of packages) to run on specific hardware configurations. Desktop stuff (although provided) is not core to the distribution. It is like comparing Windows 2003 Enterprise edition against Windows XP. *insert snide swipe at MS here*
It seems more that SuSE has decided to gun for Mandrake/MandRiva/MandCorRiva, Ubuntu, Linspire, and other desktop-focused distros than going after more "Geeky" distros like Fedora, Gentoo, etc.
I'll be interested to see the SuSE Professional 10.0 beta they'll be distributing next week and which is considered the kick-off point for this initiative.
Start a happiness pandemic
Looking at that picture of YaST2, I had no idea it was like that now. The last time I had used SuSE was back when it was 6.3... and YaST was still a pretty flaky text-only configuration tool (even though it was still one of the best attempts at making the task of configuration a little more painless). It's really nice to come back to a project and see that it has made so much progress (of course though I would expect lots of development like this out of a major corporation).
Suse was one of the first flavours of Linux that I used, I think about four years back. I quite liked it, with my only major beef being that software seemed to often be fairly old. How are things these days? Are the major players such as KDE or firefox kept up-to-date in their repositories?
Everything will be taken away from you.
Unlike SUSE, which has some closed components, everything in RedHat has always been open source, including their Enterprise distributions. Novell is in no way "following in the footsteps of Red Hat Inc.".
SUSE IS DEAD
One more crippling bombshell hit the already flagging SuSE community today, as Slashdot user Shinaku announced the results of his extensive IRC survey. "The amount of people using SuSE has dropped considerably," says Shinaku. Clearly this does not bode well for users of the once popular Linux distribution owned by Novell. This news only serves to reinforce what we already knew: SuSE is collapsing like a punctured Goodyear blimp. The rats have already jumped ship, as several chief developers of the distribution have moved to Redmond, WA, citing their plans to "stand on street corners with signs reading 'Will code for mountain dew'." The only question now is how long before the end?
You don't need to be an IRC analyst to predict SuSE's future. The writing is on the wall. SuSE faces hard times ahead, as its user base continues to drop considerably in days to come. Predatory distros such as Ubuntu and PuppyLinux grow fat on the blood of the innocent, wooing poor naive users away from the loving arms of Novell and then leaving them with nothing but a smoking hole where their hearts used to be.
Novell's latest move, Open Sourcing SuSE, is seen by some as the dying gasp: A valiant attempt, but just as surely a failure. It has often been compared to Custer's Last Stand at the Battle of Little Bighorn. John Dvorak, well known and respected writer, has gone on record as saying that Novell is expected to sell SuSE to SCO before the end of summer.
The error of margin in this survey is 3%.
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
Novell has been in trouble for some time now. I think the worst thing to happen to SuSe was Novell. SuSe had always been fairly solid, although it really suffered early on as being considered the German version of Red Hat. They have come a long way over the years, attempting to focus more on the enterprise class customers. But, they just never seemed to be able to crack Red Hat's stranglehold on the enterprise market. I don't think IBM has had a good influence either. IBM has been pumping money into them to keep them alive. It was also pushing SLES on the mainframe, which is another Linux port accomplishment, but does it really make sense as corporate strategy in 2005? I think not. Recently, IBM has been announcing new alliances and deals with Red Hat. Is that perhaps a sign of some sort of fall out between IBM and Novell? Perhaps Novell is tired of waiting for the return on their mainframe (s390) porting investment and IBM's false claims about it's future.
BTW, OpenSuse is an interesting name choice. Especially on the recent heels of OpenSolaris' release. Perhaps that's the real target....
I wonder what Russia has to say about this IP infringment? Linux Torovaldis wrote Linux for the communist government as all Russian citizens' work belongs to the socialist state. Now their competetive advantage is being stolen.
Still freely available - just look at their page.
Every time you install a GPL software, you agree to the GPL license. What's the difference? GPL isn't granted automatically, you have to agree it before you install the software. It is your responsibility to read the license and decide to use the software or not.
Hello, I'm an expertiese OSX user!
... I can say more, but me gotta go back tending me livestock!
All of me homeboys in me hometown tella me my OSX skillz are l33t. Nowaway Linux can stand up to Macky's (that the kool way of saying Mac) supper dupper similipciity and useability....
L8ter my slashdot beatches!
Not true, I can install & use & even modify for my own use GPL software but cannot DISTRIBUTE it or modify & DISTRIBUTE without agreeing to GPL license. After all, if I'm the writer and sole user, who cares if I've provided a copy of the source to myself 8D