Novell Story Site Launched

An anonymous reader writes "Novell launched a Linux/Open Source story page where everyone can briefly describe how he/she helps pushing Linux or Open Source forward. For every submission a marker is set on a world map. You can also win prices, among them, although yet not mentioned on the page, 50 SLED 10 licenses."

Comments

Useful

[Anonymous Coward]

You can also win prices

Just what I need, more prices.

Other prizes. (prices?)

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Errr - thanks for mentioning the SLED licenses, but the other prizes (that people would actually want) are:

Prize/Odds of Winning: There are 20 tier 3 prizes to be awarded, 6 tier 2 prizes, and 3 tier 1 prizes. Tier 3 prizes are Apple® 2GB Nano iPods . They have an approximate value of US $199. Tier 2 prizes are Olympus® EVOLT E-500 Digital Cameras. They have an approximate value of of $800 US. Tier 1 prizes are HP Compaq nc6400 Notebooks . They have an approximate value of $2,000 US. The odds of winning a prize depend upon the total number of eligible entries received. All prizes will be awarded, provided they are properly claimed and a sufficient number of eligible entries are received. Limit one prize per household.

Re:Other prizes. (prices?)

[The Great Pretender]

Do the HP Compaq nc6400 come pre-installed with Windows XP?

Viral

[Lord_Dweomer]

For those who aren't clear on what this is from the blurb, this is a viral marketing campaign. However it is important to note that these sorts of things can be used as a tool by us. If you want to promote this, then by all means write your story, possibly win a prize etc. Not all marketing is bad, especially if you're interested in furthering the wellbeing of a certain company or product or movement (such as open source).

And of course the way a viral campaign really spreads is if you tell people. So if you feel this is important to promote and you want it to get more press, then write about it on your blogs.

No, I don't work for Novell, but I am involved in advertising and viral advertising in particular and I'm hoping that by explaining how we can harness this, people won't just jump down their throats and start bitching out all advertising in general, and slashvertising etc.

From the article

[Denial93]

> The odds of winning a prize depend upon the total number of eligible entries received. Nice way of saying that to max your chances, do not advertise this site.

Non-US not welcome

[leandrod]

It is still not fully functional. I can't make it understand a non-US zip code or city/country combination.

Re:Non-US not welcome

[Pop69]

Yeh, London England is not a valid place ......

I was there a couple of weeks ago, I can assure you that they are correct ;-)

A Scotsman

Ideas?

[Elektroschock]

Novell run out of ideas what to do for Linux? I have a simple idea: Listen to your customers and fire technology pushists like Nat Friedman. In fact it is Novell which fucked up our SuSe distribution and key Suse specialist were laid off, technology no one requested like Red Carpet broke stability and the KDE support, SuSe's great advantage was disrupted be the strange push for Gnome. No wonder when people like Friedman become desktop strategists. Listen to your customers, ask them what they want. Not: Listen to your managerial staff and the solutions they prefer and impose them on your userbase. It is possible that SuSe could regain its reputation. But users are fed up with Novell.

Re:Ideas?

[houghi]

So yet another idea is bad?1)
1) Novell, or better SUSE listens to its customers. Just go to openSUSE.org and start contributing. Go to the factory mailinglist and start discussing the new ideas that are there.
2) Yes, SUSE fucked up with YaST. They have updates and are in the process of adding more changes.Are you contributing on the mailinglist and on openSUSE.org yet?
3) KDE support is just as strong as it ever was. The sole difference is that now you must choose with SUSE Linux wether you want GNOME or KDE.
4) SUSE asks what they want on the factory mailinglist all the time. Other places is bugzilla.
5) The amount of users has increased since Novell took over, so please don't say people don't want Novell just because you dion't like it.
6) Novell mad YaST GPL.

So yes, indeed SUSE lost some of its credability due to the zen-issues with 10.1. That however is just one distro during about one month. 10.2 will be out in december.

So it looks as if you were listen in the wrong place. You want Novell to listen to you? Go to openSUSE.org and start contributing, ideally on the mailinglists. Hurry up, otherwise you will need to wait another 8 months after 10.2 comes out for a new version.

Open Source Contributors Anonymous...

[einhverfr]

My name is Chris and I am an open source contributor...

Re:Wait, Open what?

[Anonymous Coward]

SLED 10 isn't proprietary, it's open source. You can download it from Novell's site. The licenses give you access to their support and patch services.

Joo-boon-too

[Klaidas]

Ubuntu has something like this here
However, you won't win any prices, so you won't have to pay

Re:Here are 1000000 + licenses for FREE !`

[grommit]

Whoops! You accidentally forgot to mention that to get enterprise level support for Ubuntu, you have to pay at least $250 to some company named Canonical.

I'm sure you weren't trying to compare Ubuntu's free support with SuSe's paid support, that's unpossible!

Accused as Being Proprietary?

[reverendted]

Several people have commented on SLED being proprietary. Amid this firebranding, I ask you to consider some details about SLED, SUSE, and Novell. 1. Open Source SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop was developed in open source. It includes a couple pieces of proprietary software from partner companies, such as the Macromedia Flash plugin for Firefox, RealPlayer, and Adobe Reader. It includes no proprietary kernel modules. Andreas Jaeger recently posted on SUSE's policy here. Novell includes a couple proprietary packages developed at Novell on the SLED10 media, but they do not install by default, and are all related to integrating with enterprise infrastructural services (already-deployed Novell enterprise systems). 2. Free Software, but Not Free Updates SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop is fully functional free software. It does not require any kind of license key. However, Novell hopes to make revenue on the software update service, as well as enterprise support, consulting, training, and other services. The activation keys activate the update service for one year. (Clever winners of the 50 1-year activations that we are giving away might extend that a bit by using the 60 day eval before they use their activation code.) 2. Free Updates? Yes, for openSUSE. Novell also underwrites another desktop distribution openSUSE, which includes a lot more packages than SLED. Anyone can download it and use it. However, SLED today has some features that were (thankfully) not included in openSUSE 10.1, the current version. (In fact, we had a major screw up with a including a not-ready component in openSUSE, causing a mess that we are still trying to clean up in the SUSE community.) The feature delta with SLED, as well as the extensive extra polishing that SLED received before shipping--have prompted many people in the community to expressed their desire to use SLED. They like what Novell has created and packaged--an amazingly well-assembled desktop system, and they would rather not wait for many of the features and design elements to appear in openSUSE 10.2. 3. Novell Contributes...a Lot Please give Novell some credit for driving many of the great Linux features that have shown up not only on SUSE Linux, but many other distributions. Novell hired David Reveman to complete his work on Xgl & Compiz, which are now available on Ubuntu, Gentoo and other distros. Novell hired Aaron Bockover to create Banshee on the Helix framework so that we could have legal mp3 on Linux. Novell bought Ximian and continues to enable them to create things like the new main menu for GNOME (Jimmy Krehl's "slab"), and solid desktop search well ahead of Microsoft Vista (which still may not ship with that feature). A major reason why plug and play devices like USB drives, mp3 players and cameras just work today is Robert Love's project Utopia. SUSE engineers today are pushing upstream Linux kernel code that has been and still is greatly extending battery life. Maybe these examples are still too self-interested? Novell employees the team that maintains GCC, which is a 100% upstream contribution the GNU toolchain, and yields zero competitive advantage to Novell. Novell CTO Jeff Jaffe has stated the reason: you can't just take, you gotta give back. That's why Novell is participating and contributing. Novell is part way through a cultural change that I think is nothing short of astounding. Say what you want about our marketing missing the mark. But if you believe that we are too proprietary, or that we do not actively engaged enough in open source, then tell us why you think so. Otherwise, is it really justified to berate Novell for being proprietary just because we have offered 50 update activation keys on an awareness campaign? Please refer people to this comment if you see accusations of SLED being proprietary. -- Ted Haeger (You can find me at http://reverendted.wordpress.com./

Re: Something's not right about this.

[reverendted]

"What's wrong with this picture?"
Maybe you're looking through dirty lenses? :)

SLED10 is far from proprietary. I posted an update on my blog about this mischaracterization. I'm hoping that you will be willing to read it and reconsider.