Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-project (145 mails)

[Lars Marowsky-Bree <lmb@xxxxxxx>]

On 2009-09-14T21:14:41, Thomas Hertweck <Thomas.Hertweck@xxxxxx> wrote:

> > You're aware that none of the certifications would hold for "openSLE"
> > (or whatever the name is going to be), right? Certifications aren't tied
> > to the source code, they're almost always tied to a specific,
> > well-defined compilation _plus_ an active support/maintenance
> > subscription.
> I'm working in a big company and out of experience I can tell you that
> most third-party software vendors will give support if you run their
> software which is probably only certified for RHEL on the
> binary-compatible CentOS of the same version number.

This only works as long as you take _exactly_ the same sources, and
recompile them with _exactly_ the same options, resulting in _exactly_
the same package versions. Basically, you restrict the differences to
the branding bits.

If even that - surely, /etc/SuSE-release will differ, zypper products
etc too, which some apps (mistakenly) check for, so for example an
Oracle installer will be unhappy.

Basically, if that is what you're striving for, there's very little
differentiation except the price.

I admit that I'm not exactly thrilled by a distribution like that. It
reminds me of Oracle's attempt to undermine Red Hat with UBL.

> This might not meet your definition (and those vendors will probably
> not state the official support of CentOS on their web site), but
> that's how it works in practice.

If you're going down that path, you might directly argue that the
certification is worthless. (A position that is not without merit ;-)

> Of course, you need an active support subscription for that
> specific third-party software under consideration - why would you expect
> to get support without it.

I wonder how you'd expect to resolve a bug that turns out to be in the
OS, then. Pressure the app vendor to report it via their technology
partnership, so that the base OS gets fixed/backported, and the fix gets
re-published for free, while there's absolutely no contributing
community? Nice stunt.

Frankly, I and my bank have opinions on that ;-)

If you're heading down that path, I would be more happy if you chose a
real community distribution and became a contributor. But that may be a
minority position.


Regards,
    Lars

-- 
Architect Storage/HA, OPS Engineering, Novell, Inc.
SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg)
"Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes." -- Oscar Wilde

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