Early in 2006, Novell plans to release a development framework that will let outside contributors or third-party software developers contribute software or patches. The framework also will include a publicly available server that any registered developer can use to build software, Novell said. Since the OpenSuSE.org site was launched, there have been 750000 verified installations of SuSE Linux, Novell said.
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Member since:
2005-11-05
Member since:2005-07-12
That will simply be depending on the licence Novell will use for the framework.
GLP-ed it will take a very short time, but another (more closed licence) will definitely take longer, since people will have to reverse-engineer the framework.
(and please people, don't let my post be the reason for a licence flame-war)
Edited 2006-01-06 15:56
Member since:
2005-07-06
Member since:2006-01-04
In my opinion, SuSE is dead since Novell bought them.
Almost all important SuSE people are already fired by Novell. The old SuSE has more quality (stability) than the new SuSE under Novell, in my opinion.
And the trend is: Novell just want make SuSE like Fedora (the test version of their commercial Server/Enterprise edition) and that makes new SuSE like a cheap lab.
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http://www.bcm.fh-furtwangen.de IT Business Consulting BCM - Faculty of BIT - Furtwangen Univ. - Germany
Member since:2005-07-13
And the trend is: Novell just want make SuSE like Fedora (the test version of their commercial Server/Enterprise edition) and that makes new SuSE like a cheap lab.
And what's wrong with that? It seems to be succeeding for both companies.
Old-school SuSE had a reputation for being a very solid, dependable, fully-packed linux distro. It's the only mainstream distro I've used where an average user would never have to touch a CLI. But it was also criticized for being closed.
SuSE succeeded at a time when the bar for mainstream open distros was relatively low comparatively speaking, commerical development gave SuSE a higher level of fit and finish.
But times change, distros like Ubuntu and Fedora provided relatively stable, powerful and easy-to-use distros that are "free" in every sense of the word and started generating all the hype and buzz. SuSE's model may have continued to work if SuSE was still a smaller, standalone company but it's too archaic for a larger organization like Novell (or whoever else would inevitably purchased them).
Stability might be a trade-off for the new rapid release cycle (hell, 10.1 alpha was released before 10.0 final) for some, it hasn't been for me. But a) nothing forces people to upgrade if their current distro works well (many major updates like Gnome/KDE/OOo2, as well as security/bug fixes wind up backported for previous versions) and b) it allows faster development.
I'm happy with the new model, in fact I didn't touch SuSE under the old one. But they won't be able to please everyone, that's just a simple reality.
Member since:2005-11-14
Member since:2005-07-06
SuSE rocks!!!
They sure do!
According to another article there is a new SuSE install every 12 second. See:
http://www.linuxelectrons.com/article.php/20060104171902506
What's even more interesting, is that OpenSuse probably isn't the most frequently downloaded distro there is.
E.g. I would guess that Fedora have even higher download rates, and then there is lot of people that prefer debian based distros. This would amount to an amazing gowth rate for Linux in general.
Member since:2005-10-02
Member since:2005-07-13
Suse has been in the shadows since Novell bought them. Hopefully this will bring them back out into the light.
Maybe originally, but I think OpenSuSE did a lot to bring it into the light. Unfortunately they alienated some of their long-time users, which is almost inevitable with any form of change, but they've certianly attracted much more press / buzz / new users over the last 6 months. This seems like a natural progression.
If Novell can be criticized it was probably for their handling of the whole SuSE vs. Ximian thing, which was fraught with peril from the begining. The controversy over their handling of xgl is another thing to potentially be wary of, not necessarily because they decided to take it in house and uber-develop it, but their handling of it with the community was a little troubling. If they start taking the community for granted and "force" the commercialization of linux, rather than finding a happy middle ground (which I think this latest initiative is a positive attempt at) then they're doomed to fail.
Still, what's done is done and I don't want to re-hash old discussions that have already been beaten to death, so best just to see what comes of everything now. I still have some pretty high hopes. I wasn't enamoured with Suse when I started using it a few months ago, but it has grown on me since. Works really well as my day to day platform (focused more on work than play).
Member since:
2005-11-05
I am a happy user of SuSE (and also of Debian) but I don't see this changing things all that much. I suspect the Open Source world has quickly grown wise to corporations trying to get a free ride off the greater community, whether Novell, Red Hat or anyone else.
However, if this leads to a better OpenSuSE, as I hope it will, then great. Better still would be a framework that allows folks to use SuSE as the basis for derived distros a la Debian. Perhaps this is a step in that direction, though this being Novell you have to wonder. If they think they can just "do a Fedora", though, they are wasting their time, imho.
I've used SuSE for about five years now and the current version (I am on OpenSuSE 10) is as good as any, on my machine at least.
