AMD Backs openSUSE with Huge New Infrastructure
apokryphos writes "AMD has helped sponsor the progress of openSUSE with leading-edge hardware and development expertise. "AMD is helping to ensure that the openSUSE Build Service continues to be an important collaboration and development platform for developers of all distributions," said Terri Hall, AMD vice president of Commercial Systems Marketing. Are these continued announcements of huge support from large OEMs an indication of a new era?"
You missed the part where it's a build service for developers. If you are a developer and have used or looked at their tools and interface, you'll find it will save you a lot of time, hassle and resources - write your software, upload it, and have it packaged and readily available for multiple distributions on multiple architectures. Your package has dependencies that have been updated by their developers? No problem, the service will automatically trigger to rebuild your package using the updated dependencies. Read more here.
Yes, the fact that the MS-Novell deal was about SLES and interopreability, not about making RPM and DEB packages on a remote machine (because that is what the Build Service is in the end)
Sure AMD does not care. Perhaps they just use it, because for them processors are cheap and that is the cheapest way to get advertisement.
All packages are build on an olmost daily basis (e.g. for Factory, that resulted in the now out Beta 1 for openSUSE 10.3) and that needs a bit of power that Novell did not have.
Perhaps AMD will use it as a way to tell people: You want to switch to Linux? Well, we sponsor Novells Build Service, so we are the best choice.
It is strange to see that Linux is winning and everybody is scared of it. Why? Do you WANT it to be an OS for just geeks?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.