On Sat, 8 Nov 2003, Jerry Feldman wrote:
The bottom line for SuSE is that it is a good move. However, I'm note sure it is a good move for the personal desktop users who want a good solid desktop system in that SuSE could follow Red Hat out of the personal desktop market. However, that would leave Debian, Slackware, Gentoo, Mandrake and a few others in the personal market. I would hope that SuSE remains committed to the personal desktop market.
I think in spite of some arguing and bickering we're all saying and wanting the same thing. SuSE is the BMW of Linux distros. Well engineered, easy to use, and none of us want that to go away at the price point we're used to paying. And should SuSE pull it it seems like many of us will go away. The problem is to where? Mandrake bites. Slackware and Debian are obviously not good choices in terms of "ease of use" if you like to manage stuff via Yast, etc. That's why all we can do is hope Novell is paying attention and realizes that they essentially have this market cornered if they want it. But if they try to milk it for more money they'll lose many of us. Not sure to whom yet, but it will happen. Anyway, I played around with FreeBSD some this last week. I still like it a lot and it's always an option, but Linux is light years ahead in terms of pthread support, stuff like that. And impossible to get my modem working, something that was easy in SuSE under Yast. So I'm sticking for now. Hoping that Novell doesn't force us to leave the fold. Preston