Cliff Sarginson wrote:
One thing I strongly believe in is buying the SuSE Distribution on each release. Sure, I can boot into DOS and make an FTP connection, download enough to get me started, and install the entire OS over the net. I always buy the distribution when it comes out. I figure it's the least I can do to for these folks who put so much into creating it.
The software that Suse distribute was 99% written by people who wrote it for free and have released it under the GPL or similar license.
You buying Suse distribution does not give anything back to them.
Yes it does. When people buy SuSE (or Red Hat, or Mandrake, or ?) they become part of the Linux community, increasing the mind share. A few of those people will end up on one of the many projects, be it XFree86, KDE, GNOME, or one of the hundreds of others out there. More users means more people talking, writing, thinking about Linux. Without the commercial distributions such as SuSE we'd be down to Debian, with 1/100th the users and 1/1,000th the dynamics.
Suse did not create Linux/GNU. They package it and include configuration facilities that they did write (and are not GPL'ed). I am not aware of any software packages that Suse have contributed back (X11 video drivers maybe ?).
All the major distributions have Linux programmers on the payroll. In the case of SuSE, these programmers have been major contributors to (at least, that I know of) KDE and XFree86. Red Hat pays programmers to write on the kernel and GNOME, among others. The vast majority of Samba programmers are on someone's payroll, getting paid to write Samba. Many of the staff of Apache are being paid by IBM.
It is very sad for the Suse people who lost their jobs. This can happen to anyone working for a profit-hungry company.
Nonsense. It can happen to any employee. All companies are "profit-hungry." That's what pays the bills and attracts investment. A company not "profit-hungry" is either in Chapter 11 or a public charity. The only true charity I know of in Linux is Debian, and as much as I respect them, if we all had to depend on Debian to service every Linux need, the OS would be five years behind what it is today.
If this event has one beneficial side-effect it may make people realise that Suse is not the cuddly darling bunch of techno-geeks kindly contributing to world improvement that some people on this list seem to think they are.
Suse GMBH is a hard-nosed bunch of businessmen seeking to maximise bucks at minimum cost.
So? What company isn't? Have you ever owned a business? Ever had competitors?
I sincerely hope the people that Suse have just shoved on the pavement gets jobs soon. Their technical Linux expertise should not make that difficult.
Nobody shoved anybody on any pavement. This is just rhetoric. No one likes to lay off good employees, to disrupt their lives.
My 2 pennyworth.
Yup. It shows.
Cliff
-- WARNING TO ALL PERSONNEL: Firings will continue until morale improves.