On Thu, 2011-04-21 at 21:56 +0200, Kim Leyendecker wrote:

Am 21.04.2011 21:27, schrieb Pascal Bleser:

...

If it's just for a development or evaluation phase, you can already download SLES for free and try it out (without updates, but who cares for eval and development).

And when you want to evaluate how the updates works in your IT-environment at work?

thanks

-- Kim Leyendecker (kimleyendecker@hotmail.de) openSUSE Ambassador / openSUSE Wiki Team DE HAVE A LOT OF FUN! http://www.opensuse.org | http://www.suse.de Have you tried SUSE Studio? Need to create a Live CD, an app you want to package and distribute , or create your own linux distro. Give SUSE Studio a try. www.susestudio.com. Hi Evaluation is 60 days of updates included.....

But there are also OEM installs of SLES and SLED on HP, DELL and MSI on notebooks, servers etc. They have their own customized repositories for tweaks like bluetooth, wireless etc -- Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890) SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (x86_64) Kernel 2.6.32.29-0.3-default up 3 days 16:29, 4 users, load average: 0.15, 0.06, 0.06 GPU GeForce 8600 GTS Silent - Driver Version: 270.41.03 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Am 21.04.2011 23:28, schrieb Gerald Pfeifer:

You leverage the 60 days of free updates that come with the eval.:-)

Yeah, but 60 days....IMHO it´s too short for a serious test -- Kim Leyendecker (kimleyendecker@hotmail.de) openSUSE Ambassador / openSUSE Wiki Team DE HAVE A LOT OF FUN! http://www.opensuse.org | http://www.suse.de Have you tried SUSE Studio? Need to create a Live CD, an app you want to package and distribute , or create your own linux distro. Give SUSE Studio a try. www.susestudio.com. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Friday, 2011-04-22 at 07:16 -0500, Rajko M. wrote:

On Friday, April 22, 2011 04:02:05 AM Kim Leyendecker wrote:

...

Yeah, but 60 days....IMHO it´s too short for a serious test

It is 60 days (2 months) of free updates, which gives you chance to update system to current status. You can test system long after that period, but there will be no security and other updates.

What if it doesn't pass the test, and you want to try again a year or two later? You can't. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. (from 11.2 x86_64 "Emerald" at Telcontar) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.12 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAk24yOEACgkQtTMYHG2NR9UBnACfaWatDB/83uBYW6EqTpbc8yVM ZX0AnApUXZOJ97ZKrExrSD3fby2sm+tg =3S8z -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 2011-04-28 05:48, Jim Henderson wrote:

On Thu, 28 Apr 2011 03:54:41 +0200, Carlos E. R. wrote:

Sure you can, you contact Novell (or SUSE, now) and ask for a second evaluation.

Someone commented a similar case in one of the mail lists. He got no answer. I don't mean he got "no", he got no answer.

Or you have someone else with your organization do the eval.

Not viable if you are not (yet?) an organization. - -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 11.2 x86_64 "Emerald" at Telcontar) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.12 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk25MewACgkQtTMYHG2NR9WGhQCggi3BxrJVzFrDdAgJN2BYnpg2 yVwAnRmU+aGoOK/TRda5rRrDiSyaTwJ6 =IRGq -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Le 28/04/2011 19:14, Jim Henderson a écrit :

I spent many years working in IT, and not once did I ask for an eval and not get an answer - but if I hadn't gotten an answer, I would have escalated with the contacts I had at the company

or flag the product as "failed to pass the tests". When one sell support and don't answer, that's bad :-)) jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://www.youtube.com/user/jdddodinorg http://jdd.blip.tv/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Jim Henderson wrote:

On Thu, 28 Apr 2011 11:22:52 +0200, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

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On 2011-04-28 05:48, Jim Henderson wrote:

...

On Thu, 28 Apr 2011 03:54:41 +0200, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

Sure you can, you contact Novell (or SUSE, now) and ask for a second evaluation.

Someone commented a similar case in one of the mail lists. He got no answer. I don't mean he got "no", he got no answer.

I'm not aware of that situation; and I'm sure if the SUSE folks on this ML had been aware of it, they might've been able to help.

But really, honestly, do you think 60 days (or 90 days, or 120 days, or whatever the eval period is) is really too short to do a proper evaluation?

To anyone properly prepared to do an evaluation, 30 days is plenty. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (16.6°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Sat, 30 Apr 2011 04:22:27 +0200, Carlos E. R. wrote:

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On Thursday, 2011-04-28 at 17:14 -0000, Jim Henderson wrote:

...

On Thu, 28 Apr 2011 11:22:52 +0200, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

...

Someone commented a similar case in one of the mail lists. He got no answer. I don't mean he got "no", he got no answer.

I'm not aware of that situation; and I'm sure if the SUSE folks on this ML had been aware of it, they might've been able to help.

It was someone in South/Central America, and he wrote in Spanish to us in the Spanish list.

OK, I'll take your word for it. Perhaps we need a better connection to that mailing list. It seems that someone who subscribes to that list and this one might've said something instead of holding it up as an example for why the default eval period isn't long enough. That doesn't really help the customer. If it's recent, you know there are people on this list who work for SUSE, so maybe even send the info to one of those individuals to follow up on. That's part of what being a community is about - helping each other out.

...

But really, honestly, do you think 60 days (or 90 days, or 120 days, or whatever the eval period is) is really too short to do a proper evaluation? How long is a long enough eval period? A year? Two years? At some point the line has to be drawn, and if someone needs more time, they need to ask for it - and if they don't get an answer, then they need to raise the issue with someone who can address it.

I understand that, and it is not my case. My case would that of one trying to get to know that side, just in case some one would want to hire me, not in order to use sles myself. I, hypothetically, would need to keep a continuous contact, now and then, to see how it feels. For that reason I can not commit to try it for just 30 days, I have to reserve that for a real chance, because I can only try it once in a lifetime, as far as I understand.

Well, like I said, that's not actually the case. It's entirely possible to get more than one eval if necessary. The thing is, one can search and search and search for the odd situation when someone wasn't able to find the right person. Those unusual conditions and circumstances don't drive how an eval program is set up. The *typical* situation is what's used to set up a program like that. So rather than looking for the really way-out-there-one-in-a-million chance that someone cannot complete a reasonable evaluation in the allotted time, consider that probably 99% of the people who *do* an eval are able to do it. Then consider that the 1% that can't be dealt with with the normal program can *generally* get an exception made that meets their needs, this really becomes a non-issue. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 2011-04-28 08:12, jdd wrote:

Le 28/04/2011 03:54, Carlos E. R. a écrit :

...

What if it doesn't pass the test, and you want to try again a year or two later? You can't.

you need susbsciption only to test the update mechanism. you can test the distro as long as you want without that.

and don't be too demanding, trying a commercial product for a very long time mean using it!

I'm thinking of the cases where there is a bug that impedes the product from working for you. You have to wait for a release pack or a new version. It is not a continuous evaluation: you try it once, fails, and a year later you try again to see if the problems were solved. I have had bugs in openSUSE taking two or more years to be solved. Yes, it is true that you can't do that with every business product. With some, you can. And with linux, we expect it. Then there is the case of the will be professional that uses sles for his own training. He is not making a profit, yet. Only if he is hired and the job includes maintaining sles will he buying it - and not him, but the business he now works for. - -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 11.2 x86_64 "Emerald" at Telcontar) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.12 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk25MXEACgkQtTMYHG2NR9XEpwCglgHzFjI13Y/NqZdjldMJ9QsA CLQAn3vzL4IqkUwyf4qU+ujR6AAJ9DPB =eUrC -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On 2011-04-28 Carlos wrote:

On 2011-04-28 08:12, jdd wrote:

...

Le 28/04/2011 03:54, Carlos E. R. a écrit :

...

What if it doesn't pass the test, and you want to try again a year or two later? You can't.

you need susbsciption only to test the update mechanism. you can test the distro as long as you want without that.

and don't be too demanding, trying a commercial product for a very long time mean using it!

I'm thinking of the cases where there is a bug that impedes the product from working for you. You have to wait for a release pack or a new version.

It is not a continuous evaluation: you try it once, fails, and a year later you try again to see if the problems were solved. I have had bugs in openSUSE taking two or more years to be solved.

Yes, it is true that you can't do that with every business product. With some, you can. And with linux, we expect it.

Then there is the case of the will be professional that uses sles for his own training. He is not making a profit, yet. Only if he is hired and the job includes maintaining sles will he buying it - and not him, but the business he now works for.

Sorry, but SUSE has plenty of sales people who can help you with all of this. I'm sure they can send you a second eval if you request it in a phone call (easy enough to request a call on the website) or figure out and tell you if your bug has been fixed. Or wait for a new service pack (which includes all the updates) to become available and download & test that. Seriously, SUSE has sales. Let them worry about this. If you need training, use openSUSE - for normal, day to day stuff the experience you gather there is 99% transferable to SLE. The few area's where it's not, well, there are trainings for SLE and certifications, get those (you'll need them anyway to prove your knowledge). Sorry but to me it feels you're trying to find reasons while there aren't any. oh and balsam isn't free either, it's just cheaper. If it will ever exist (SLE 12 isn't exactly released yet, is it? Who knows if openSLX still exists in the few years it might take for SLE 12 to release?) In any case, these are things SUSE can and should take care off. Contact their sales people if you have worries about it. Let them handle it.

Am 29.04.2011 12:30, schrieb Sebastian Kügler:

On Thursday, April 28, 2011 13:43:03 Jos Poortvliet wrote:

...

oh and balsam isn't free either, it's just cheaper.

We're actually planning a freely downloadable version.

Are you talking Professional or Enterprise here? Just curious. And freely downloadable doesn't say anything at all since even SLES is "freely" downloadable. Wolfgang -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Am Donnerstag 21 April 2011, 21:27:37 schrieb Pascal Bleser:

So the only purpose of an "openSLES" (or "Balsam Enterprise") is to hurt Novell by taking revenue from Novell.

If someone knows of a different purpose, I'd love to hear about it.

Dude, it's called competitive market. Business is not a charity. Novell chose to bet a large part of its business on GPL software and it's absolutely legally as well as morally OK for a competitor to take the sources, repackage them, and sell services cheaper. Ironically, what you condemn is also done by Novell: Novell also sells support services for RHEL in a move "to hurt Red Hat by taking revenue from Red Hat". -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 04:22:52PM +0200, Kim Leyendecker wrote:

By the way: Novell offers support for RHEL? WTF?!

They only do so for customers that are migrating to SLES, and have a number of their existing systems running RHEL, and need to have them supported during the transition period. Hope this explains things better. thanks, greg k-h -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Am Freitag 22 April 2011, 16:37:06 schrieb Greg KH:

They only do so for customers that are migrating to SLES, and have a number of their existing systems running RHEL, and need to have them supported during the transition period.

That's still a move "to hurt Red Hat by taking revenue from Red Hat". ;-) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Sat, 23 Apr 2011 12:34:36 +0200, Kim Leyendecker wrote:

By the way, openSUSE is more an upstream project. With the start of SUSE Studio we (and Novell) allowed the vast majority to easy clone openSUSE´s and Novell´s techonology. Remember: I came to the openSUSE project as I create my own openSUSE-clone and felt like " I have to give back something as a "thank you"".

That's an interesting point, Kim. Thinking back on the strategy discussions, one of the proposed strategies was that openSUSE become a base for derivatives. So if that is the project's intent, then Balsam becomes a natural progression and at least from a product standpoint, that's actually something we see (or saw) as desirable. I still would like to understand better why the community site was setup largely out of view of the openSUSE community, but even in that view, it makes some sense to me as well; a derivative of the distro might necessarily have its own community that is a derivative of the openSUSE community as well. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Lørdag den 23. april 2011 19:41:40 skrev Jim Henderson:

On Sat, 23 Apr 2011 12:34:36 +0200, Kim Leyendecker wrote:

...

By the way, openSUSE is more an upstream project. With the start of SUSE Studio we (and Novell) allowed the vast majority to easy clone openSUSE´s and Novell´s techonology. Remember: I came to the openSUSE project as I create my own openSUSE-clone and felt like " I have to give back something as a "thank you"".

That's an interesting point, Kim. Thinking back on the strategy discussions, one of the proposed strategies was that openSUSE become a base for derivatives.

But it was not a popular proposal by any means. Who wants to contribute to a piece of junk that is only intended to be diamond in the rough for others to polish and take advantage of. And the whole idea builds on the assumption that derivative makers will contribute back - which is highly doubtful. And we're already seing that. Derivative makers are making a lot of effort to differentiate from openSUSE, rather than help making openSUSE better. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Le 24/04/2011 18:08, Jim Henderson a écrit :

And yet we have SUSE Studio, which makes it easy to build derivatives.

and studio is *not* openSUSE but Novell, so it looks like Novell like derivatives? as far as I understand... jdd -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On 2011-04-24 Martin wrote:

Lørdag den 23. april 2011 19:41:40 skrev Jim Henderson:

...

On Sat, 23 Apr 2011 12:34:36 +0200, Kim Leyendecker wrote:

...

By the way, openSUSE is more an upstream project. With the start of SUSE Studio we (and Novell) allowed the vast majority to easy clone openSUSE´s and Novell´s techonology. Remember: I came to the openSUSE project as I create my own openSUSE-clone and felt like " I have to give back something as a "thank you"".

That's an interesting point, Kim. Thinking back on the strategy discussions, one of the proposed strategies was that openSUSE become a base for derivatives.

But it was not a popular proposal by any means.

Who wants to contribute to a piece of junk that is only intended to be diamond in the rough for others to polish and take advantage of.

Hmmm, yes, that's why Debian is so insignificant ;-) As others have said, be a bit more openminded. openSLX wants to contribute, actually, they do by paying a couple of active community members. So they put in work. No-one has the right to slam that imho.

And the whole idea builds on the assumption that derivative makers will contribute back - which is highly doubtful. And we're already seing that. Derivative makers are making a lot of effort to differentiate from openSUSE, rather than help making openSUSE better.

I would like to add a comment. When a good and active part of the community who has been around for longer than openSLX asked for the creation of an open version of SLE, Novell/openSUSE was not so kind and supportive since it was seen as competition for SLE. What changed in this? Why isn't this project pursued inside the openSUSE community instead than by a separate company which will actually represent competition, since it will offer commercial support? This does not make too much sense at a first sight, but we are open to explanations :-) Regards, AP 2011/4/27 Martin Schlander :

Onsdag den 27. april 2011 05:35:28 skrev Jos Poortvliet:

...

On 2011-04-24 Martin wrote:

...

Who wants to contribute to a piece of junk that is only intended to be diamond in the rough for others to polish and take advantage of.

Hmmm, yes, that's why Debian is so insignificant ;-)

They're less significant than they used to be - particularly on desktops. And Canonical, Mepis, Xandros, Mint etc. aren't the ones doing the work. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

-- Alberto Passalacqua -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Hi, 2011/4/27 Koushik Kumar Nundy :

It appears that the openSUSE project has no official stance for or against Balsam, and I personally feel it shouldn't have one either, so there really isn't much we can do about it. Another company, another product. Apparently end of story. Let us worry about the openSUSE project. Let openSLX worry about Balsam.

It actually is another company, same product. And it seems largely at the expenses of the openSUSE project, which does most of the job without getting anything back. Someone claims openSLX contributes to openSUSE, but how? Splitting the community with the creation of their support site and redirecting users there? Taking advantage of two projects from Novell without benefits for our community? Because the benefits of Balsam Enterprise will only be for them it seems. Not having a position on that does not seem a good idea to me, especially when the position was very clear when the internal community to the openSUSE project tried to do something similar. It frankly seems that community members have to pay a price others do not have to pay, and it comes natural to ask what is the advantage of contributing to a project that works this way. Best, A -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On 28 April 2011 10:25, Alberto Passalacqua wrote:

Hi,

2011/4/27 Koushik Kumar Nundy :

...

It appears that the openSUSE project has no official stance for or against Balsam, and I personally feel it shouldn't have one either, so there really isn't much we can do about it.  Another company, another product. Apparently end of story. Let us worry about the openSUSE project. Let openSLX worry about Balsam.

It actually is another company, same product.

That is how GPL works. Can't really help it. Anyone can use the code. Technically CentOS and RHEL would then be the same product as well, but in practice they aren't.

And it seems largely at the expenses of the openSUSE project, which does most of the job without getting anything back. Someone claims openSLX contributes to openSUSE, but how? Splitting the community with the creation of their support site and redirecting users there?

Whatever the intentions of openSLX,

Taking advantage of two projects from Novell without benefits for our community?

AFAIK, openSUSE is not a Novell product. SUSE Studio is, and if I understand correctly, it's very purpose is to make creating openSUSE based distrolets, so I see no "exploitation" or "taking advantage" here.

Because the benefits of Balsam Enterprise will only be for them it seems.

Not having a position on that does not seem a good idea to me, especially when the position was very clear when the internal community to the openSUSE project tried to do something similar.

If Balsam, or anyone else, is a rebranded openSUSE clone, the only way we can stop contributing to them is if we stop contributing to openSUSE. Hardly a happy option. If anyone is an SLE clone, we, the openSUSE project, can do nothing about it, simply because it is not our product.

It frankly seems that community members have to pay a price others do not have to pay, and it comes natural to ask what is the advantage of contributing to a project that works this way.

If people say "Why contribute to Debian, I don't like Linux Mint.", God save our souls.

Best, A

Disclaimer: All opinions are personal. I am not a representative of openSUSE and speak only for myself. I do not represent openSLX. I hardly know who they are. I just feel we should not care if someone chooses to make a derivative outside the project. Thanks ~kknundy -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Le 28/04/2011 08:15, Alberto Passalacqua a écrit :

I am not saying they cannot do what they are doing. I am saying that is quite a stretch to claim that they are significantly contributing to openSUSE, at least in my pocket (and not only mine from what I hear).

well... until we create the Foundation, openSUSE *can't* receive itself any money, so we can only see is developpers are working for us. If any company use openSUSE as base, his vey interest is to help openSUSE anyway we should more focus on making openSUSE better than looking at the other people's dishes jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://www.youtube.com/user/jdddodinorg http://jdd.blip.tv/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

2011/4/28 jdd :

Le 28/04/2011 04:25, Alberto Passalacqua a écrit :

...

It actually is another company, same product. And it seems largely at the expenses of the openSUSE project,

this is free software, guys!

Not the same sorry. SUSE was not using Slackware infrastructure to build what they needed. It was a fork. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On 04/28/2011 08:15 AM, jdd wrote:

Le 28/04/2011 04:25, Alberto Passalacqua a écrit :

...

It actually is another company, same product. And it seems largely at the expenses of the openSUSE project,

this is free software, guys!

do you remember how SuSE was born? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SUSE_Linux_distributions#Origins Thanks for the URL. This brought me to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurix which I used for a couple of years before jumping to S.u.S.E. 4.3 :-) Very nice memories, Jurix was the only distro at that time with shadow passwords. I did not know, that YaST was started by Florian... Bye, CzP -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On 2011-04-27 Alberto wrote:

Hi,

2011/4/27 Koushik Kumar Nundy :

...

It appears that the openSUSE project has no official stance for or against Balsam, and I personally feel it shouldn't have one either, so there really isn't much we can do about it. Another company, another product. Apparently end of story. Let us worry about the openSUSE project. Let openSLX worry about Balsam.

It actually is another company, same product. And it seems largely at the expenses of the openSUSE project, which does most of the job without getting anything back. Someone claims openSLX contributes to openSUSE, but how? Splitting the community with the creation of their support site and redirecting users there? Taking advantage of two projects from Novell without benefits for our community? Because the benefits of Balsam Enterprise will only be for them it seems.

Not having a position on that does not seem a good idea to me, especially when the position was very clear when the internal community to the openSUSE project tried to do something similar. It frankly seems that community members have to pay a price others do not have to pay, and it comes natural to ask what is the advantage of contributing to a project that works this way.

openSUSE didn't do it out of concern for Novell's opinion. openSLX decided otherwise - which is entirely their right. Novell has not said anything about this whole thing as: 1. it is vaporware right now (SLE 12? Anyone has any idea when that'll be released? Probably won't be anytime soon...) 2. just gives attention to something which shouldn't get any Now about the questions on openSLX contributions to openSUSE: they do contribute but have a tendency to do it in a hidden fashion. The reason for that is unclear to me. I do know it's how they've worked with Novell in the past so I have a strong suspicion it's not just their choice but was actually requested by Novell from them. Not sure why. Whatever the reasons for doing it quietly or methods of contribution, yes, they contribute. They contributed to our wiki, sponsored our conference and have people working on and within openSUSE (like Sebas, Rupert and others). Of course they don't contribute as much as Novell but they're a small company so it's not a fair comparison imho... And JDD has a very good point:

If any company use openSUSE as base, his vey interest is to help openSUSE

anyway we should more focus on making openSUSE better than looking at the other people's dishes

This is exactly how I feel. If openSLX wants to do this - fine. It is a bit sad they decided to rename their openSUSE box to Balsam Professional but that's their choice too. They still build on openSUSE technology and work within our community - so that's all we need to cooperate, a common interest. And honestly I think the Plasma Active and Tablet stuff is really cool and I wish we would get over this and all work on that so we can talk about it as an openSUSE project... Let's skip the politics and get back to work please! :D

Best, A

Hugs, Jos

Hi Jos, On Thursday, April 28, 2011 16:09:26 Jos Poortvliet wrote:

Now about the questions on openSLX contributions to openSUSE: they do contribute but have a tendency to do it in a hidden fashion.

"hidden fashion"? Our contributions take place in community context (IRC, ML, sprints as main communication channels for development), we're improving existing packages and building new ones in the KDE:Active repository. If you would like to be kept on track about that work, follow planetsuse, planetkde, watch commits and progress in the plasma-mobile repository on Git or the changes made to the KDE:Active repository.

The reason for that is unclear to me. I do know it's how they've worked with Novell in the past so I have a strong suspicion it's not just their choice but was actually requested by Novell from them. Not sure why.

I'm not aware of any such thing, and I'd probably find it quite ridiculous. We actually have a policy of working upstream, and I'm doing exactly that: the work I contribute always goes to the "most upstream" project (that's usually either KDE's Git or the OBS).

Whatever the reasons for doing it quietly or methods of contribution, yes, they contribute. They contributed to our wiki, sponsored our conference and have people working on and within openSUSE (like Sebas, Rupert and others). Of course they don't contribute as much as Novell but they're a small company so it's not a fair comparison imho...

Compared to company size, our we probably contribute much more than Novell does. Our contributions and investment in openSUSE and other upstream projects is actually growing, something that I'm not sure can be said about Novell. I agree though, the comparison is not very useful. =) Lies, damn lies and statistics...

And JDD has a very good point:

...

If any company use openSUSE as base, his vey interest is to help openSUSE

Exactly, there's a lot of common ground and interest. There's also different focus, different interest, and I think that's OK as long as we clearly define those and establish ways of working together. In order to get the most out of these common interests, we should look at those common interests and align our work there. Plasma Active, as you note below is I think a fine example. For open-slx, the main interest is the user experience so that's where we're trying to improve things in openSUSE. Our involvement with the Plasma Active project is one part of that.

...

anyway we should more focus on making openSUSE better than looking at the other people's dishes

Agree. :) I think it would also be very beneficial to the openSUSE community to support companies that are getting involved with openSUSE commercially (not just open-slx, but it's exemplary), especially if they contribute back. Which is what we (open-slx) do. Growing the ecosystem beyond Novell and Attachmate is very much in the interest of the openSUSE community as it reduces the risk of being dependent on one company. This lies at the heart of openSUSE becoming more independent from Novell, and turning into a real community-driven and - controlled project.

This is exactly how I feel. If openSLX wants to do this - fine. It is a bit sad they decided to rename their openSUSE box to Balsam Professional but that's their choice too.

The trademark guidelines *mandate* renaming our product if you do *any* modifications (we have been shipping additional packages for a long term, think of codecs for example). Also, the dependency on Novell's legal department for the trademark is a problem for us. Even if we didn't change anything about the past versions of the openSUSE box, it would not work under the new trademark guidelines. I've actually pointed this out to you before, so I'm not quite getting why you find this sad. It's clearly formulated in the trademark guidelines, which I suppose you know well.

They still build on openSUSE technology and work within our community - so that's all we need to cooperate, a common interest. And honestly I think the Plasma Active and Tablet stuff is really cool and I wish we would get over this and all work on that so we can talk about it as an openSUSE project...

Let's skip the politics and get back to work please!

Write a political email, then tell people to skip reacting to that, getting back to work. Lead by example, please. =) All the best, -- sebas Sebastian Kügler :: Open-SLX -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Friday, April 22, 2011 09:22:52 AM Kim Leyendecker wrote:

Will we support Balsam? And from his point of view, we won´t because it hurts Novell´s business.

It is the other reason, the only "product" that we support is openSUSE distribution. Professional product support is not giving advice and hoping that it will work. People that have their income at stake can't count on "maybe someone can help me", they have to know who (name, address, phone number, email address) and how fast can fix their problem (hours, days, weeks) and if that person can't who can. It is reality of business, you have customers that have to know when you are able to provide service, or merchandise, and that reflects on your demands to your service providers. You will not give money to car maker that can, deliver you car tomorrow or sometime next year if they have some problems. You want car now, or if it is special order, then day when it will be ready. openSUSE volunteer system can't give such guarantees, nor any of the skilled volunteers will ever take such task. The most skilled are those that make for living providing such technical support, and activity in openSUSE is just for fun. -- Regards, Rajko -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Hi Kim, On Friday, April 22, 2011 18:11:43 Kim Leyendecker wrote:

thanks, so we don´t support Balsam, that´s the answer of my question. Well, this thread is solved and I think, we don´t need to talk about how Balsam harms Novell business, and can continue working on our projects.

It is important to think about two aspects, before taking such a decision. First, what does it mean to not support Balsam? Is this about Balsam Enterprise, or Professional, and in which way support it? What mandate do, or anyone who takes such a decision? Can you tell others to do or not do something like this? It's fine as a personal choice, of course, but as you talk of we, you'll also need to define what this means, for whom. Second, there the exclusivity issue. By not supporting Balsam, you disallow a company that invests into openSUSE to not take part in the community. This makes openSUSE as a project very unattractive to anyone who wants to do business with it (and potentially invest into it), and who is not Novell or Attachmate. Instead of making the future of the project safer, you are closing the projects to others, and you're increasing the dependency on one company. If you want to spread the risk, it is important to encourage companies that invest into openSUSE, and not just pick one exclusively. All the best, -- sebas Sebastian Kügler :: Open-SLX -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Am 22.04.2011 20:57, schrieb Vincent Untz:

Can you clarify what you mean here?

To me "not supporting Balsam" doesn't mean "hey, guys, you're crazy to do Balsam, we hate you". It just means we support the software we produce inside the openSUSE project

(ie, the openSUSE distribution, but also the build service, openfate, etc.), but we don't support this specific derivative over which we don't have a direct control. In the very same way that we don't support a lot of other derivatives.

Now, there might also be opinions like "we don't really understand why you do Balsam instead of helping change openSUSE to make it do what you want" (which, I think, is a fair opinion). But unless such opinions become a statement from the Board, it's just personal opinions.

Those opinions might reflect what a good part of the community thinks, though, in which case this means there's at least a misunderstanding between the community and open-slx. If this is the case, then both the community and open-slx should work on helping clear the misunderstanding. Vincent, the whole story is easy. Open-SLX wants get people behind their

He´s a smart guy, he understands what´s support mean ;) product. That´s normal. Every project/company would do it so. And as I understood it, they felt a little "pissed" because I threw the sentence "we don´t support Balsam" into the room. That is the same as you want to go out with a girl and she says: "No I don´t go out with you, so, take yourself away..." -- Kim Leyendecker (kimleyendecker@hotmail.de) openSUSE Ambassador / openSUSE Wiki Team DE HAVE A LOT OF FUN! http://www.opensuse.org | http://www.suse.de Have you tried SUSE Studio? Need to create a Live CD, an app you want to package and distribute , or create your own linux distro. Give SUSE Studio a try. www.susestudio.com. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Am 22.04.2011 22:18, schrieb jdd:

this thread is basically without real meaning...

Probably this dicussion would have not existed if we had the Foundation.

we can have several sponsors, Novell is one, open-slx can be an other.

That said, may be the openSUSE foundation board can also act as an arbiter between sponsors is necessary. It's not necessarily good to have two sponsors fight one against the other.

that said, what open-slx do is not really our bussiness as long as the licence is followed. Nor is our bussiness the way Novell manage SLES/SLED.

and of course we don't have to support our sponsors, this is the other way round, our sponsors have to support us :-))

A truth spoken word. The whole thread could be so easy. Just say: Did we support them, because we do in the past offers the openSUSE-box by open-slx in the wiki. a simple yes or no and the whole thread would gonna in the past... thansk -- Kim Leyendecker (kimleyendecker@hotmail.de) openSUSE Ambassador / openSUSE Wiki Team DE HAVE A LOT OF FUN! http://www.opensuse.org | http://www.suse.de Have you tried SUSE Studio? Need to create a Live CD, an app you want to package and distribute , or create your own linux distro. Give SUSE Studio a try. www.susestudio.com. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Am 23.04.2011 13:26, schrieb jdd:

Le 23/04/2011 12:37, Kim Leyendecker a écrit :

...

A truth spoken word. The whole thread could be so easy. Just say: Did we support them, because we do in the past offers the openSUSE-box by open-slx in the wiki.

a simple yes or no and the whole thread would gonna in the past...

if by "support" you mean "say it exists", of course we should. I remember some years ago, I created a page "how to get openSUSE" and give the coordinates of all the vendors I could find.

Yes, that it exists. And that we say: "When you need a box, use Balsam, with kind regards from the openSUSE project."

I certainly think than we have to give basic information on any openSUSE derivative we know (as long as the derivative respect the licence, of course).

That would be nice anyway.

As soon as the Foundation exist (really needed soon!!!), we should list sponsors with some way of classifing them from the size of the sponsorship (like the gold, silver, or similar that is already used)

A propos foundation: How far is the progress in creating it? And where should the foundation stand? Germany, USA, France, Suisse?

of course the board have as important function to work out a fair competition between our sponsors. It's good for us to make our sponsors happy in a fair way.

jdd

thanks -- Kim Leyendecker (kimleyendecker@hotmail.de) openSUSE Ambassador / openSUSE Wiki Team DE HAVE A LOT OF FUN! http://www.opensuse.org | http://www.suse.de Have you tried SUSE Studio? Need to create a Live CD, an app you want to package and distribute , or create your own linux distro. Give SUSE Studio a try. www.susestudio.com. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Le 23/04/2011 19:02, Per Jessen a écrit :

I think it was decided that it would be a German foundation.

yes, most people are german of near germany

Wrt current status, check with the -foundation mailing list.

stalled for some month now :-( jdd -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Rajko M. wrote:

On Friday, April 22, 2011 09:22:52 AM Kim Leyendecker wrote:

...

Will we support Balsam? And from his point of view, we won´t because it hurts Novell´s business.

It is the other reason, the only "product" that we support is openSUSE distribution.

Professional product support is not giving advice and hoping that it will work.

I guess you have yet to meet with the real world :-( I've been on both ends of that, and I can assure you that professional support is often exactly what you describe. Unfortunately, but true. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (18.9°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Normaly, it´s not my problem when a company´s business gets hurt, but in this case, the company is our main sponsor and the employer of some openSUSE-developers (well, some? A lot...)

So, I´m interested in Novell getting successfully because this is the only way to keep them sponsoring us. Your right. It´s Business, not charity. And do you know what happens when they feel that SUSE/openSUSE doesn´t work for Novell´s business? Yeah, right, the will sell it or just say: Okay fiends, we had a great time together, but Novell have to make money. Don´t be angry with us... but openSUSE is history!

History has shown us that FOSS depending on a single corporate sponsor is bad for the community. The most recent example is Oracle and many of its FOSS projects. From the point of view of FOSS communities, it is in the community's best interest to have a diverse ecosystem of contributors. In the best case scenario if one contributor is forced for whatever reason to downscale its commitment, another contributor steps in and fills the void. As I've written in another mail in this thread: open-slx does that. Novell is downsizing its FOSS commitment since years. In the past Novell had 3 or 4 full- time developers only for KDE (I use that example because I'm most familiar with it). Stephan Binner was fired, Lubos Lunak was transferred to LibreOffice, IIRC there was a third developer who was transferred or fired, and now only Will Stephenson is left. Now thanks to open-slx there is also Sebastian Kügler which means that there are now two instead of one full-time KDE contributors in openSUSE. It's not open-slx's fault that Novell's managers are unskilled business people (though I'm not really convinced that a company that calls its corporate Linux distribution like a name for a body lotion company is run by geniuses... "the new shower gel – now by Balsam Enterprise") The people who recently formed Mageia already experienced what clinging to a single corporate sponsor with dwindling commercial success means. IMO the best outcome for openSUSE would be to become the Debian of RPM distros: A neutral ground for all kinds of entities (be it corporations or individual people) to contribute and serve as base for whatever distributions (SLES, Balsam, possibly MeeGo, and maybe even the Mageia people). Markus -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Fri, 22 Apr 2011 14:21:25 +0200, Markus Slopianka wrote:

Ironically, what you condemn is also done by Novell: Novell also sells support services for RHEL in a move "to hurt Red Hat by taking revenue from Red Hat".

There's just a slight difference between these two - Novell and RedHat haven't been partners in the past (that I'm aware of, at least), and even if they were, that status is certainly not in effect now. I don't think there are RedHat employees on the openSUSE Board currently either. The relationship between openSUSE and open-slx is very different from the relationship between Novell and RedHat or the relationship between RedHat and CentOS. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org