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Mark Shuttleworth Tries To Lure OpenSUSE Devs

Posted by Zonk on from the trolling-for-talent dept.

polar_bear` writes "A lot of developers are angry at Novell for its deal with Microsoft, but is it fair game for other vendors to try to capitalize on dissatisfaction with Novell? Apparently, Mark Shuttleworth thinks so. Shuttleworth sent an invitation to the openSUSE developers list inviting developers 'concerned about the long term consequences' of Novell's deal to participate in Ubuntu Open Week and consider jumping ship to Ubuntu. OpenSUSE and Ubuntu developers are not amused."

6 of 258 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Bad Call by FateStayNight · · Score: 5, Insightful

    inviting people over is an act of courtesy though. It not like he threatened them or made false statements about Novell's future.

  2. What's the problem? by stox · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't see an issue with this. Mark's note was well written, and simply mentions that there are alternatives. It was not malicious or derogatory. As for trying to poach developers, you don't think the like of Novell and RedHat aren't doing that all the time? At least Mark is doing it out in the open, instead of using agents, ie. recruiters, to do it.

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    "To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
  3. Nu-uh by msaver · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Certainly, some developers are not at all pleased with the Microsoft-Novell agreement. Mark is just letting them know they're welcome :P

    Anyway, I don't see why this is 'un-Linuxy'. Competition helps OSS thrive, and if you can convince developers to work on your project, why wouldn't you?

  4. Re:Bad Call by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The idea of inviting developers to jump ship is too... un-Linuxy. OSS in general is not about getting the most developers, nor is it about sucking projects dry when they make an alliance with the heart of all computing evil. OSS is about choice.And a choice is exactly what he offered.

  5. More developers is good... by Bob54321 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't think that Mark was saying "Hey, come to Ubuntu, we need more developers" or "You should leave Novell now!". It appears to be more of "Hey, if you're leaving, our distribution has got big fast and there is always an opening for someone we know is good at what they do". Well at least it appears that way to me - just a statement made with good intentions that may have been interpreted by others in a different way. Happens all the time...

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  6. Re:Bad Call by Daniel+Phillips · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Posting it on another project's developer mailing list is trolling.

    Oh, like when Linus posted about Linux on the Minix list?

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