OpenSUSE
|
| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Khamul Feb 10, 2012 1:13 AM EDT |
Quoting:openSUSE is known for their great integration with KDE OpenSUSE is also known for selling out to Microsoft. |
| tracyanne Feb 10, 2012 1:14 AM EDT |
In what way? |
| caitlyn Feb 10, 2012 1:36 AM EDT |
Their former parent company, Novell, could be accused of that, sort of, maybe. The distro? I don't think so. |
| tuxchick Feb 10, 2012 1:59 AM EDT |
OpenSUSE hasn't sold out. Neither has SUSE. Novell? They fund OpenSUSE, and they fund the Linux Driver Project, and the enterprise version of SUSE runs on mainframes and is probably the best big-iron Linux. They fund a bunch of other Linux stuff too. The world is not binary heroes and villains; it's a bit more complex than that. |
| Khamul Feb 10, 2012 2:24 AM EDT |
They signed a patent cross-licensing deal with MS, in effect validating MS's bogus patent claims. Attachmate inherited the deal and has continued it. |
| tracyanne Feb 10, 2012 3:02 AM EDT |
I wasn't aware that openSUSE had any patents to cross license. |
| Khamul Feb 10, 2012 3:26 AM EDT |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novell#Agreement_with_Microsoft "The deal involves upfront payment of $348 million from Microsoft to Novell for patent cooperation and SLES subscription. Additionally, Microsoft will spend around $46 million yearly, over the next 5 years, for marketing and selling a combined SLES/Windows Server offering and related virtualization solutions, while Novell will pay at least $40 million yearly to Microsoft, in the same period." http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000121 |
| vainrveenr Feb 10, 2012 4:22 AM EDT |
Quoting:OpenSUSE hasn't sold out. Neither has SUSE. Novell? They fund OpenSUSE, and they fund the Linux Driver Project, and the enterprise version of SUSE runs on mainframes and is probably the best big-iron Linux. They fund a bunch of other Linux stuff too. The world is not binary heroes and villains; it's a bit more complex than that.Indeed, and part of that Linux distro "complexity" has already been addressed before -- and here at LXer no doubt. SUSE's actual 'Linux Downloads' site at http://www.suse.com/download-linux/ fairly clearly states upfront : Quoting:If you want an affordable, innovative desktop operating system that works seamlessly with Windows, then download SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop.One can further extend the same so-called "affordability" quotient to SLES as to SLED, regardless of any attachment SUSE has with Novell/Attachmate and regardless of Novell's/Attachmate's association with Microsoft. The DistroWatch.com Novell 'SUSE Linux Enterprise' page found at http://distrowatch.com/novell only serves to confirm this. OTOH, although openSUSE is indeed sponsored by Novell, openSUSE most certainly does not have the same tie-ins as the SLEx's do to Novell/Attachmate, and by extension, to Microsoft. Instead, openSUSE is much more of a true Community-type distribution. The openSUSE DistroWatch.com page description confirms this: Quoting:The openSUSE project is a community program sponsored by Novell. Promoting the use of Linux everywhere, this program provides free, easy access to openSUSE, a complete Linux distribution. The openSUSE project has three main goals: make openSUSE the easiest Linux for anyone to obtain and the most widely used Linux distribution; leverage open source collaboration to make openSUSE the world's most usable Linux distribution and desktop environment for new and experienced Linux users; dramatically simplify and open the development and packaging processes to make openSUSE the platform of choice for Linux developers and software vendors.(source found at http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=suse) Just as the decidedly corporate-oriented SLEx's are juxtaposed with the community-oriented openSUSE, in a similar fashion is Red Hat's corporate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) juxtaposed with the Community-oriented Fedora Linux and maybe CentOS Linux as well. See the DistroWatch.com community-oriented distro descriptions for Fedora and for CentOS Further complexities such as these have been previously enumerated in the past, and will no doubt continue to be clarified here and in the future. |
| tracyanne Feb 10, 2012 7:35 AM EDT |
@Khamul, yes, yes but what patents does openSUSE have that they could cross license with Microsoft |
| JaseP Feb 10, 2012 10:51 AM EDT |
Fedora is NOT Red Hat Enterprise Linux with an open source label... They work differently. Scientific Linux or CentOS are better aligned with RHEL. While I don't (yet) know enough to tell you exactly HOW Fedora is different, the RHSCA & RHCE study materials will bear that out. @Tracyanne It's my understanding that SUSE has some interoperability patents that are useful to MS, independent of their Novel masters. And I believe they are way firmer patents than the drivel that MS typically claims are violated. |
| vainrveenr Feb 10, 2012 12:48 PM EDT |
Quoting:Fedora is NOT Red Hat Enterprise Linux with an open source label... They work differently.Indeed, the DistroWatch.com distro descriptions for both Fedora and CentOS show how these two relate to Red Hat and how they may work differently from one another. Fedora's Quoting:The Fedora Project is an openly-developed project designed by Red Hat, open for general participation, led by a meritocracy, following a set of project objectives. The goal of The Fedora Project is to work with the Linux community to build a complete, general purpose operating system exclusively from open source software. Development will be done in a public forum. The project will produce time-based releases of Fedora about 2-3 times a year, with a public release schedule. The Red Hat engineering team will continue to participate in building Fedora and will invite and encourage more outside participation than in past releases. By using this more open process, we hope to provide an operating system more in line with the ideals of free software and more appealing to the open source community.The Fedora Project homepage is found at http://fedoraproject.org/ CentOS's Quoting:CentOS as a group is a community of open source contributors and users. Typical CentOS users are organisations and individuals that do not need strong commercial support in order to achieve successful operation. CentOS is 100% compatible rebuild of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux, in full compliance with Red Hat's redistribution requirements. CentOS is for people who need an enterprise class operating system stability without the cost of certification and support.The Community ENTerprise Operating System (CentOS) homepage is found at http://www.centos.org/ ---- Now compare the descriptions for these two with the full openSUSE DistroWatch.com description as previously-quoted three comments above. The openSUSE.org homepage is found at http://www.opensuse.org/ One of the major points from all this is that few can so easily dispute the obvious community involvement in both of these Red Hat -related distros and in openSUSE itself. Therefore, the starting assertion remains predominantly unsupported, namely, that Quoting:OpenSUSE is also known for selling out to Microsoft |
| JaseP Feb 10, 2012 1:27 PM EDT |
My point was that many people confuse the commercial distro and the community distros. Which is what you, vainrveenr, are saying a different way. One thing though ... With the code that these entities put out into open source GPL'd distros being (at least occasionally) protected by patents, the right to use their code is licensed by virtue of the patent clause in the GPL (to what degree is dependent on which version of the GPL the code was released under). So, to at least some extent, what SLEx has protected by patents is to some degree extended to the entire Linux community as a whole... Not withstanding the above, keep in mind that the so called cross licensing agreements may be written more as covenants not to sue,... which aren't necessarily licensing any technology per se, so much as they are an armistice between the two parties (and their customers). In that case, it's only between MS & SUSE/Novell that any protection exists... |
| dinotrac Feb 11, 2012 12:44 PM EDT |
Quoting:in effect validating MS's bogus patent claims. Doesn't matter who says it or how many times it gets said. That remains one of the stupidest statements ever made. Microsoft paid Novell hundreds of millions of dollars -- AND sold a lot of SuSE linux in exchange for getting those cross-licensing deals. Novell got to tell their customers they wouldn't have to worry about Microsoft. Big win and no-brainer for Novell. As to validating MS patent claims? Not in the least. Had Novell paid Microsoft, you might have a talking point. You want to pissed off at companies for "validating" Microsoft's claims (and you'd still be wrong), get pissed off at HTC, Samsung, Pantech, LG and any other vendor that has paid Microsoft licensing fees for android. |
| Ridcully Feb 11, 2012 1:08 PM EDT |
Quoting: openSUSE is known for their great integration with KDE I got tangled in the arguments above. All I know and care about is that openSUSE works brilliantly for me and in its earlier forms has done the same for the past 10 years. It works, I know how it works and I wouldn't change to another distribution. It's community based, and my pragmatic perspective is that what Novell does or did is irrelevant to the operation of a very well engineered software package. That is not to say that I wholly approve of some of the things Novell did.....But I strongly support the quote - if KDE works anywhere, it works extremely well on openSUSE. |
| tuxchick Feb 11, 2012 4:55 PM EDT |
"If you are not with us then you are against us" is dumb. Real life doesn't work that way. Novell doesn't do everything just the way you want? So what, they probably don't like everything you do either. The path to real progress is seeking common ground and building on that. Success speaks louder than judgment. |
| dinotrac Feb 11, 2012 5:16 PM EDT |
@tc - Yup. |
| Ridcully Feb 11, 2012 6:21 PM EDT |
@tuxchick.....may I echo those sentiments too ? For me to dump openSUSE just because there are aspects of Novell I don't like would be like "cutting off my nose to spite my face". I know others dumped openSUSE, but personally I could never justify it. |
Posting in this forum is limited to members of the group: [ForumMods, SITEADMINS, MEMBERS.]
Becoming a member of LXer is easy and free. Join Us!