this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2024
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It’s become clear to many that Red Hat’s recent missteps with CentOS and the availability of RHEL source code indicate that it’s fallen from its respected place as “the open organization.” SUSE seems to be poised to benefit from Red Hat’s errors. We connect the dots.

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[–] [email protected] 89 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Also SUSE: OpenSUSE needs to change their name because we say so

[–] [email protected] 36 points 3 months ago (2 children)

There's always been the risk of confusion and openSUSE project seemed to have understood that SUSE could disallow the name at any moment. A name change does make sense for both. Especially now that even Leap might be distancing itself from SLE and whatnot.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (5 children)

A name change does make sense for both. Especially now that even Leap might be distancing itself from SLE and whatnot.

Agreed, but GeekOS or whatever it was they had on that oSC slide ... Cheesus, they can do better than that.

Yeah, I get the mascot's name is Geeko, so maybe that is where they're getting GeekOS. But I think I read that the mascot has to go together with the name anyway.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 months ago

Cheesus, they can do better than that

On recent performance, no they can't. I mean, they had the chance to use Driftwood and went with Slowroll.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

There’s always been the risk of confusion

A name change does make sense for both

Then make SUSE become ClosedSUSE. It couldn't be easier.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (4 children)

To be fair, OpenSUSE is the only project with a name like that, so it makes some sense that they'd want it changed.
There's no OpenRedHat, no OpenNovell, no OpenLinspire, etc.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Maybe they should go with OpenGecko or OpenChameleon

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)
  • OpenLinux

  • OpenUnix

  • OpenJDK

  • OpenWatcom

  • OpenWebOS

  • OpenVMS

  • OpenOffice

  • OpenTF, briefly.

I think OpenNovell was a thing too.

Thing is, 'Open-' was the prefix for a LOT of derivations about 20 years ago. I'm surprised you've never heard of any.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Not at all what my point was. There's indeed plenty of Open-something (or Libre-something) projects under the sun, but no free/open spins of commercial projects named simply "Open<Trademarked company name / commercial offering>".

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Definitely getting into pedantry now, sorry - but OpenSuse isn't strictly a free version of Suse. Like RHEL, there are some proprietary and commercially restricted software in Suse that doesn't reappear - verbatim - in OpenSuse.

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[–] [email protected] 70 points 3 months ago (9 children)

Debian Stable.

It's always the answer to "what distro do I want to use when I care about stability and support-ability.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago

And, unlike CentOS, it can't be legally taken over by a corporate entity and changed into something entirely different. Debian is owned by Debian.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Maybe just not for corporate enterprise that wants phone and tech support? unless Debian has an Enterprise vendor? The PLM systems and other enterprise level software are certified on SUSE and RHEL, personally I haven't seen Debian listed anywhere.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago

I know at least of Freexian. But also, Ubuntu tends to cover the "Like Debian, but with enterprise support" niche.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

In my homelab I have Debian VMs originally set up with Debian 6 in 2011 which were upgraded another 6 major releases to now Debian 12 over the years. When I think about Debian I always get a very warm cozy feeling.

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 3 months ago (1 children)

This article reads like a press release from SUSE.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

No because the caption under the first image says that SUSE's mascot is a 'gecko named Geeko' -- which cannot be farther from the truth, for it is a Chameleon named Geeko, that is the mascot of SUSE. Aye.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 3 months ago (5 children)

This seems like a PR release and has zero proof or data in the article to back itself up.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago

Yep. I've seen nothing of the sort in the wild. Still Ubuntu and RHEL/Centos/Rocky/AMZ2 in the DC almost exclusively. The only things I've seen making a few inroads for practical applications are CachyOS and Clear Linux.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Didn't SUSE just ask openSUSE to change its name?

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (11 children)

1000002697

Rocky Linux and possibly Alamalinux are the future if openSUSE is anything to go by

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Rocky doesn't support the range or products needed to be "the" enterprise suite.

Heck you could even go Liberty Linux and have the same bins as Rock but support under SUSE, plus k8s, plus update management, plus security tools, plus k8s multi cluster, plus some ai thing to convince investors you are doing something with it.

Like, and all that's great, but honestly still not "enough" all under one roof for some enterprise costumers who are just looking to turn a problem into an expense.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Alma has been good for me the past year or so

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Not to be confused with OpenSUSE…

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago (1 children)

To be honest, their demand that OpenSUSE rebrand left a bad taste in my mouth. I get the logic behind it, but the time for that passed a long time ago (probably about 15 years ago).

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

their demand that OpenSUSE rebrand

Slight changing of the tone, there. They have formally requested the change, not demanded.

Maybe that will follow, I can't read the future, but it's not the case today.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (3 children)

I mean yes they did "formally request" it, but given the power dynamic between a FOSS project and a large technology company, openSUSE is not in a position where they could possibly refuse. So is there a difference between a request and a demand?

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago

It has “become clear”. Has it?

Red Hat contributes more to Open Source than pretty much anybody. Certainly more than SUSE. That seems self-evident. If you want to debate, bring receipts.

As per the article, SUSE gets most of its money from SAP. SAP was founded by a bunch of ex-IBM people in Germany. They make IBM seem like cowboys.

The new SUSE CEO is ex Red Hat. Again, according the the article, the hope was that he would bring some of the Red Hat “open source magic” but SUSE has proven too “corporate”. Not exactly supporting their own argument there.

I am not close enough to the situation to know, but I doubt SUSE is taking over anything from Red Hat soon. RHEL is so far ahead that they have multiple distros trying to be “alternate” suppliers of RHEL by offering compatible distros. SUSE themselves are doing that now. If the world is looking to SUSE, why isn’t anybody trying to clone SUSE Enterprise?

SUSE is making some smart moves, given that they are the underdog. But let’s not confuse that with SUSE pulling ahead of Red Hat.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (11 children)

To be blunt...

Redhat contributes a huge amount to the community.

The only ones who think they're misstepping or whatever are just making noise and likely aren't even using RHEL.

I don't think people realise exactly how far their contributions go for usability, and getting rid of Redhat of actually a really bad thing for Linux.

I'd even argue, the only people complaining about this likely don't contribute anything to Linux anyway...

The only thing they did is stop oracle pulling their repo, rebranding and selling support slightly cheaper.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 months ago (3 children)

I disagree with you. You seem keen to insult people who might hold an alternative opinion, so no doubt you'll attack me as well.

Redhat did far more than just stymie Oracle. That you're saying that suggests you're either deliberately ignoring the facts (Ending CentOS 8 7 years early with no prior announcement, being massively disrespectful to the volunteer CentOS maintainers and support staff), deliberately paywalling source deliberately to target all rebuilders, not just Oracle, generally being amateurish and entitled dicks to the community through their official communications and so on) - or you simply don't know.

About the only thing you say that is correct, is that Redhat do contribute a lot to FOSS, even now. That deserves respect, but it gets harder to do that at a personal level each time they do something simultaneously dumb and selfishly corporate. A lot of people have given Redhat a lot of space and stayed quiet out of respect of their history. Maybe they are right to, but the direction they're heading doesn't look healthy to me.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Redhat have done a lot for Linux in the past. And that will likely continue for some time yet. But they have done some seriously questionable things ever since IBM bought them out. I don't like the direction they seem to be heading in as withmany of IBM products.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I'm sure enterprises are just running for the door, just like they did when IBM bought Red Hat. Also Hashicorp. Enterprises are going to dump Terraform because it's closed source and owned by IBM

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Nobody gets fired for buying IBM.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

But people do get sacked when IBM buys you.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

OpenTofu is the replacement for everyone else. Them too?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Why replace Hashi if you're in the RH or IBM ecosystem? Why replace it at all if you're an enterprise? They have enterprise support.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Thing is, the last time I saw under the hood while collaborating with suse, the packaging was a freak show and the culture was abrasive.

Rocky until PCLinuxOS gets a decent VM template.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

Why PCLinuxOS?

I'm genuinely curious.

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