Re: [opensuse-factory] openSUSE 101 - SUSE != openSUSE
On 2018-02-26, Liam Proven <lproven@suse.com> wrote:
(Coming back to the whole "openSUSE" versus "SUSE" thing -- KIWI is an openSUSE project. While the main maintainer might be a SUSE employee -- there is nothing "corporate" about its development or wide-spread usage. After all, the entire openSUSE distribution depends on it to create the installation media.)
And here we are again!
The extreme sensitivity to the SUSE-versus-openSUSE distinction... but so far, on the list, I have not had much in the way of constructive commentary on actually *explaining* this to people.
People clearly care about the distinction very much indeed, but not enough to _tell anyone about it_.
Several people have tried to explain it, but you've rejected every explanation offered with "it's not simple enough". I really don't know *how* you want this to be explained. The reason why people are sensitive about it is that this is a community that has gone through quite a few painful transitions related to its relationship with Novell. Talking about openSUSE as a "SUSE product" is reminiscent of how Novell viewed openSUSE, so opening this can of worms in the middle of a heated thread is part of the reason why people were so unhappy with this discussion.
Look at this webpage:
It's a nice, smart-looking page. It's got the SUSE logo on it. It has the same corporate design as the rest of the SUSE site.
It doesn't have the SUSE logo (I don't want to get too deep into the details here, but the logo is actually different in a few ways) and personally the website doesn't look the same as <https://www.suse.com/> either. But this argument also seems quite odd to me -- every Tom, Dick, and Harry uses Bootstrap for their websites but you don't instantly assume that every startup is a Twitter product.
How is a visitor to know this is _not_ another product of SUSE?
There is nothing at all there that says that the product the page is about is _not_ made, distributed and supported by SUSE, just free of charge.
The list of products sold by SUSE is available here at <https://www.suse.com/products/>. By definition, anything *not* listed here is not a SUSE product. The assumption that everything is a SUSE product until proven otherwise is unintuitive (to me at least). An example of a SUSE tool or product would be SUSE Studio, while KIWI (which is a large component of how SUSE Studio works) is the openSUSE project that the tool is based on. -- Aleksa Sarai Senior Software Engineer (Containers) SUSE Linux GmbH <https://www.cyphar.com/>
On Tue, 27 Feb 2018 11:43:57 +1100 Aleksa Sarai <asarai@suse.de> wrote:
Several people have tried to explain it, but you've rejected every explanation offered with "it's not simple enough". I really don't know *how* you want this to be explained.
I am sorry if I am annoying people. I do not personally care. However, it seems to be something important. If it's important, shouldn't it be clearly spelled out? Because it isn't. I didn't know, and I have been working with SUSE and SUSE products since it was SuSE in 1996 or so. The current version of openSUSE has a version number that is in a direct sequence from the SUSE Linux Professional that I used back then. But here, people keep telling me it's not the same, it's different. But it doesn't actually say so anywhere. How are we supposed to know?
The reason why people are sensitive about it is that this is a community that has gone through quite a few painful transitions related to its relationship with Novell. Talking about openSUSE as a "SUSE product" is reminiscent of how Novell viewed openSUSE, so opening this can of worms in the middle of a heated thread is part of the reason why people were so unhappy with this discussion.
OK, fair enough. But that is not an excuse not for the distinction *as it exists today* between SUSE and openSUSE not to be made plain. No?
Look at this webpage:
It's a nice, smart-looking page. It's got the SUSE logo on it. It has the same corporate design as the rest of the SUSE site.
It doesn't have the SUSE logo
Look at the top left. See that chameleon logo? Now look at https://www.suse.com/ Look at the top left. Same logo. Same chameleon. The only difference is an extra word, the same extra word as was used by DEC in VMS versus OpenVMS, or in Caldera OpenLinux, or in https://www.open-xchange.com/ and lots of other places. It's a word so widely used that it doesn't have much meaning any more.
and personally the website doesn't look the same as <https://www.suse.com/> either.
Wow. I am very surprised by that. You do not consider that, for example, https://www.opensuse.org/#Leap and https://www.suse.com/products/server/ ... have similar designs?
But this argument also seems quite odd to me -- every Tom, Dick, and Harry uses Bootstrap for their websites but you don't instantly assume that every startup is a Twitter product.
To be honest, I have never even heard of it.
The list of products sold by SUSE is available here at <https://www.suse.com/products/>.
OpenSUSE is not sold. So why would it be there?
By definition, anything *not* listed here is not a SUSE product.
Whose definition? I am serious. That's what I am trying to understand. Is there a definition? Where is it? My sketchy working definition before I was told otherwise was "if it's got the word 'SUSE' in the name and a chameleon as its logo, it's a SUSE product."
The assumption that everything is a SUSE product until proven otherwise is unintuitive (to me at least).
You don't think that having the name "SUSE" in it might make people think that the free distro is from the same company as the paid ones?
An example of a SUSE tool or product would be SUSE Studio, while KIWI (which is a large component of how SUSE Studio works) is the openSUSE project that the tool is based on.
And how are we to know that? I am not trying to start a fight. I am not here for an argument for fun, and I am not in any way representing any SUSE views on this. I am here because writing stuff and explaining stuff is what I do. It's why I work here. I want to help to explain this. I will happily write such an explanation for you, so it is nice and clear and plain and others don't make the same mistake I did. But before I can explain it, I have to understand it myself. -- Liam Proven - Technical Writer, SUSE Linux s.r.o. Corso II, Křižíkova 148/34, 186-00 Praha 8 - Karlín, Czechia Email: lproven@suse.com - Office telephone: +420 284 241 084 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org
Look at this webpage:
It's a nice, smart-looking page. It's got the SUSE logo on it. It has
the same corporate design as the rest of the SUSE site.
It doesn't have the SUSE logo
Look at the top left.
See that chameleon logo?
Now look at https://www.suse.com/
Look at the top left.
Same logo. Same chameleon. The only difference is an extra word, the same extra word as was used by DEC in VMS versus OpenVMS, or in Caldera OpenLinux, or in https://www.open-xchange.com/ and lots of other places.
It's a word so widely used that it doesn't have much meaning any more.
Excuuuuse me? Different color, on top of that SUSE chameleon is a little taller. They are very similar, but not the same. LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org
Liam Proven composed on 2018-02-28 12:05 (UTC+0100):
But before I can explain it, I have to understand it myself.
Thus the problem with software patch writers who don't provide accompanying documentation patches, or omit examples from any documentation they do provide. Wikis maintained only by users attempt to get something from nothing, or at best, too little. -- "Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Whatever else you get, get wisdom." Proverbs 4:7 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org
Am 28.02.2018 um 12:05 schrieb Liam Proven:
Because it isn't. I didn't know, and I have been working with SUSE and SUSE products since it was SuSE in 1996 or so.
Any you never noticed the founding of openSUSE? And it never occured to you, that "openSUSE C.d" may be a successor of "SUSE Professional A.b", but it is not a SUSE (company) product any more, but an openSUSE (community) "product"? Wow. I didn't think this could happen. But I never thought that people might deduct "this is the same company" just by two websites using the same animal in the website logo. Hell, how big must this penguin company be, and what might be its real name? Werner --
On Thu, 01 Mar 2018 10:44:50 +0100 Werner Flamme <werner.flamme@ufz.de> wrote:
Am 28.02.2018 um 12:05 schrieb Liam Proven:
Because it isn't. I didn't know, and I have been working with SUSE and SUSE products since it was SuSE in 1996 or so.
Any you never noticed the founding of openSUSE?
Nope. As far as I was concerned, as an outsider no longer actively using SUSE at that time, after Novell bought SUSE, the entry-level product became free of charge and the server version became expensive. That's all. Later, the free version split into 2 branches: a rolling-release version and periodic stable snapshots. And you know what? I reckon that is what most of the rest of the Linux world believes, too. I am an expert in this stuff, writing about it professionally for more than 20 years now. I track the progress of dozens of distributions, regularly evaluate them in VMs, recommend them to people for different reasons and purposes. It's been a large part of my job since the 1990s. And no, I never suspected such a big change had happened. I didn't work much with SUSE until I came to work here. I didn't pay special attention to it, no more than I did to Red Hat or Mageia or OpenMandriva or Arch or Gentoo. And it doesn't say anything different on the website. So why should I think anything was different?
And it never occured to you, that "openSUSE C.d" may be a successor of "SUSE Professional A.b", but it is not a SUSE (company) product any more, but an openSUSE (community) "product"?
No. Why would I? It doesn't say that anywhere. I don't dig through mission statements and things. I don't care. I am not interested. I'm only interested in what it does and how much it costs, nothing else.
Wow. I didn't think this could happen.
I am as surprised as you are that you can't imagine this.
But I never thought that people might deduct "this is the same company" just by two websites using the same animal in the website logo. Hell, how big must this penguin company be, and what might be its real name?
Yes. 2 organisations with the same name and the same logo, using the same version numbers they have for 25 years, but with a word or 2 added to the product name... But no, they're not the same thing at all, they're made by different teams under different management. No, I would never suspect that. It sounds crazy. It wouldn't cross my mind. -- Liam Proven - Technical Writer, SUSE Linux s.r.o. Corso II, Křižíkova 148/34, 186-00 Praha 8 - Karlín, Czechia Email: lproven@suse.com - Office telephone: +420 284 241 084 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org
On 2018-03-02 13:15, Liam Proven wrote:
And you know what? I reckon that is what most of the rest of the Linux world believes, too.
I know this is true, at least for many people. Just now I had to correct somebody talking of "Suse Leap 15 beta". -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 42.2 x86_64 "Malachite" at Telcontar)
On Fri, Mar 2, 2018 at 7:15 AM, Liam Proven <lproven@suse.com> wrote:
On Thu, 01 Mar 2018 10:44:50 +0100 Werner Flamme <werner.flamme@ufz.de> wrote:
But I never thought that people might deduct "this is the same company" just by two websites using the same animal in the website logo. Hell, how big must this penguin company be, and what might be its real name?
Yes. 2 organisations with the same name and the same logo, using the same version numbers they have for 25 years, but with a word or 2 added to the product name... But no, they're not the same thing at all, they're made by different teams under different management.
No, I would never suspect that. It sounds crazy. It wouldn't cross my mind.
This is precisely why Fedora doesn't have hats in its logo, and doesn't have the Red Hat name in it. Only a vague association because a fedora is the type of hat worn by the shadowman. -- 真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth! -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org
On Fri, 2 Mar 2018 07:50:10 -0500 Neal Gompa <ngompa13@gmail.com> wrote:
This is precisely why Fedora doesn't have hats in its logo, and doesn't have the Red Hat name in it. Only a vague association because a fedora is the type of hat worn by the shadowman.
Exactly. Actually, I don't know much about hats :-) nor did I know the RH logo had a name until I worked there, so I had just thought "a fedora is a type of hat". Now, I do actually have a red fedora, but I wouldn't even have registered that tenuous link. If it had been me at the time, I would have called what is now openSUSE "Chameleon Linux" or even the (now taken, by a meta-distro of openSUSE, which sort of makes my point) "Gecko Linux" or something. If the organisation was to be independent and separate, keeping the name was a mistake, in my humble and entirely personal and non-corporate opinion. The same goes for the logo and the version numbering. :-( -- Liam Proven - Technical Writer, SUSE Linux s.r.o. Corso II, Křižíkova 148/34, 186-00 Praha 8 - Karlín, Czechia Email: lproven@suse.com - Office telephone: +420 284 241 084 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org
On Fri, 2 Mar 2018 07:50:10 -0500 Neal Gompa <ngompa13@gmail.com> wrote:
This is precisely why Fedora doesn't have hats in its logo, and doesn't have the Red Hat name in it. Only a vague association because a fedora is the type of hat worn by the shadowman.
It honestly makes sense...so many OSS companies offer a free "community version" and a paid "enterprise version", the primary difference being features and support. A few examples of software that I use that come to mind, that have setups like this: Nextcloud OPNSense nginx Zerotier XenServer Each of these are provided by the same company, just different offerings. If it's that big of a deal that people not be confused about the break between openSuSE and SuSE, then there needs to be a naming and logo differentiation, like with Fedora vs Red Hat. To me, it shouldn't be that big of a deal. openSuSE and SLES are both awesome, innovative products, with cool connections to each other. Just my $.02-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org
From: Christopher Myers <cmyers@millikin.edu> Sent: Friday, March 2, 2018 7:59 AM To: opensuse-factory@opensuse.org Subject: Re: [opensuse-factory] openSUSE 101 - SUSE != openSUSE Each of these are provided by the same company, just different offerings.
I worded that sentence poorly. I'm not saying that all of those software pieces are provided by one parent company, but rather each of those pieces of software have both a community edition and an enterprise edition offered by their respective parent companies, the difference between them being feature set and support offerings.-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org
On 2018-03-02 15:03, Christopher Myers wrote:
From: Christopher Myers <cmyers@millikin.edu> Sent: Friday, March 2, 2018 7:59 AM To: opensuse-factory@opensuse.org Subject: Re: [opensuse-factory] openSUSE 101 - SUSE != openSUSE Each of these are provided by the same company, just different offerings.
I worded that sentence poorly.
I'm not saying that all of those software pieces are provided by one parent company, but rather each of those pieces of software have both a community edition and an enterprise edition offered by their respective parent companies, the difference between them being feature set and support offerings.--
But the point we want to make is that openSUSE is not made by the company at all. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 42.2 x86_64 "Malachite" at Telcontar)
Hey, On 02.03.2018 14:07, Liam Proven wrote:
Actually, I don't know much about hats :-)
Can you get off my lawn with your theoretical marketing discussions please? This is a development list. It was fun for a while, but this has gotten out of hand! Henne -- Henne Vogelsang http://www.opensuse.org Everybody has a plan, until they get hit. - Mike Tyson -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org
Can you get off my lawn with your theoretical marketing discussions please? This is a development list. It was fun for a while, but this has gotten out of hand!
Henne
This isn't my battle, and I really don't care at all about it. I like openSuSE and I like SLES. The fact that they're apparently from separate organizations doesn't matter at all to me. But people are being kind of mean to each other about it, which isn't ok. If there really is this much ire caused by outsiders thinking that they're part of the same organization, then having the name and logo so similar seems extremely counter-intuitive, and getting all up in arms about it won't solve anything at all. Thinking from the perspective of a consumer, who doesn't know (or really even care about) the inner workings of such things -- Apple TV Apple Watch Apple iPhone Apple iPod Apple iPad Apple Macintosh If Apple split apart and moved their iDevices line into a wholly separate organization that didn't want to be considered a derivative of the Apple corporation, then the new organization would have to drop the "Apple" name and logo. Otherwise, someone would logically assume that an Apple iFridge with the same logo placed smack dab on the front was connected to the same Apple that makes the Apple Macintosh. It just makes sense, especially in today's copyright-litigous world. Cases in point: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/05/apple-sues-woolworths-ove_n_309450... https://creativepro.com/apple-sues-over-logo-again/ https://thelogocompany.net/blog/design-news/apple-sues-chinese-food-logo/ https://gizmodo.com/5059881/apple-sues-school-for-using-the-same-fruit-in-a-... If folks at openSuSE are so concerned that people know that they are separate from SuSE, and so aggravated that folks are getting confused about it, then they need to change the name and logo. Otherwise, they need to understand that people will be confused by the name and logo being so similar, and will draw the logical conclusion that the two are connected. If it's that big of a deal, change the logo and the name. Otherwise, it's so ridiculous that people are getting so up in arms about logical conclusions.-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org
If the organisation was to be independent and separate, keeping the name was a mistake, in my humble and entirely personal and non-corporate opinion. The same goes for the logo and the version numbering. :-(
So what guys, we come up with different name? Something witty something simple, something more rms-y (as we well know Stallman hates "open", I see it fitting here more than any other project, considering how OPEN it is, but whatever, Stallman says it's wrong). https://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html#openSUSE freeWEED? libreSEEDS? redoBRANDINGforLEAP15.0 Linux? LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org
On Fri, 02 Mar 2018, 14:07:40 +0100, Liam Proven wrote:
[...] If the organisation was to be independent and separate, keeping the name was a mistake, in my humble and entirely personal and non-corporate opinion. The same goes for the logo and the version numbering. :-(
Get over it... [t/m Eagles 1994] Cheers. l8er manfred
participants (10)
-
Aleksa Sarai -
Carlos E. R. -
Christopher Myers -
Felix Miata -
Henne Vogelsang -
Liam Proven -
Manfred Hollstein -
Neal Gompa -
Stasiek -
Werner Flamme