Ivan Sergio Borgonovo
It is well known that Software with an OSI approved license develop faster.
It ain't that simple :) I could name you some software projects that would simply die if it weren't for companies that pay their core developers. Who, other then SUSE developers would honestly work on adapting YaST2 to their needs? I guess it would go the way of YaST1, i.e. a sourceforge project that never went beyond the planing stage.
We should sell services and development, not chains.
I do not believe that a linux distributor can live on services and development alone, at least if it wants to be among the big players. Services and development alone won't support hundreds of employees.
SUSE Linux is definitively a good product and SUSE techs definitively know what they are doing (kudos), but this business model is not going to last forever in the Free Software market.
Only time will tell and I'm still not convinced that I'm going to witness the decision in my lifetime. Philipp