Greg Freemyer wrote:

On Wed, 20 Oct 2004 00:50:30 +0100, Mark Crean wrote:

...

Anyone seen this article just up on the web:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1679393,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03129TX1K0000616

cited at http://linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/2004101902026NWDTNV

And the slightly ominous statement attributed to the Novell Linux Desktop's director of marketing:

"Looking ahead, Haeger said the current Novell/SUSE Linux desktop, SUSE Linux Professional, will become more of a community desktop, similar to Red Hat's Fedora, while the Novell Linux Desktop will eventually become the company's sole fully-supported desktop for the business market."

Hmmn, community desktop ... dread phrase! I wonder what that means. It makes me think we'd all better buy 9.2 mighty fast lest it turns out to be the last of a very fine run.

I think they are talking about support, not delivery.

So in the near future if you want to buy a Novell desktop product that you are able to pick up the phone and get true support for, you need to get Novell Linux Desktop. Ie. Novell will provide helpdesk for more than just installation questions.

SuSE 9.2 (and most prior SUSE products) depend on "community support", just like you get on this list.

So if you are not buying full end-user support now, you should see no difference.

I was deeply concerned about this, so I emailed Mr. Haeger. Here are my comments: ------------ http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1679393,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03129TX1K0000616 "Looking ahead, Haeger said the current Novell/SUSE Linux desktop, SUSE Linux Professional will become more of a community desktop, similar to Red Hat's Fedora, while the Novell Linux Desktop will eventually become the company's sole fully-supported desktop for the business market." I caught this on suse-linux-e*, and I expect it to be a hot-debated subject. If not from anyone else, then, from me, anyway. I came to SuSE by way of Red Hat's shift in distribution thinking. I could tell that they were going the way of Fedora based on the quality and timing on their 8.0 and 9 releases. I switched after using RH 8.0 for about a month, and I've been delighted with SuSE ever since. There's a new clustered SuSE Enterprise Linux server going in at my company because of my satisfaction with it. Obviously, you're busy, but I hope you can take a second to expound upon the quote above. It may be that you were taken out of context. It may be that Mr. Vaughan-Nicholas misunderstood you. I just want to know -- and the list will want to know -- what this really means. Are the Pro and Personal editions headed toward a communal, time-driven release schedule? I characterize Fedora as a rolling beta, and the quality proves this. On the other hand, I look at the current state of gnome-pilot, and wonder if a "rolling" distro would get the fix into place sooner and with better closure than the typical release process. Eagerly awaiting clarification, dk * http://lists.suse.com/archive/suse-linux-e/2004-Oct/2663.html ------------ Here's his response: ------------ The author actually mis-understood what I told him. I toild him that SUSE LINUX Pro was already Fedora-like in what it offers, since it is not backed by the kind of support business environments require. You state that you're putting in SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server, which is /exactly/ the right way to go for clustered servers backed by business-grade support. SUSE LINUX has a long record of producing it's off-the-shelf releases on a semi-anual basis with a lot of good quality control invested into those releases. So, even if we do move ahead with making SLPro into a more community-oriented edition of SUSE (which would be planned by my colleague, Mr. Charlie Ungashick), we would not likely do it the in the same fashion as Red Hat with Fedora. SUSE built a name in Linux by adhering to some admirable quality standards. Novell very much values the work SUSE has put into earning this. ------------- The bottom line is that I think Mr. Freemyer is correct, and I'm glad to hear it. dk

On Wed, 20 Oct 2004 12:23:41 -0500, you wrote:

Greg Freemyer wrote:

[snippage]

I was deeply concerned about this, so I emailed Mr. Haeger. Here are my comments:

-----------

[more snippage] Thanks for checking this out David! I also came to SuSE as a result of Red Hat orphaning everone unwilling to spend Microsoft-style money for Microsoft-style support. I'm relieved that I don't have to start looking for another distro already. Mike- -- If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs... You may have a great career as a network administrator ahead! -- Please note - Due to the intense volume of spam, we have installed site-wide spam filters at catherders.com. If email from you bounces, try non-HTML, non-encoded, non-attachments,