Novell’s decision to go to great lengths to circumvent the patent framework clearly articulated in the GPL has sent shockwaves through the community. If you are an OpenSUSE developer who is concerned about the long term consequences of this pact, you may be interested in some of the events happening next week as part of the Ubuntu Open Week: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek We are hosting a series of introductory sessions for people who want to join the Ubuntu community - in any capacity, including developers and package maintainers. If you want to find out how Ubuntu works, how to contribute or participate, or how to get specific items addressed, there will be something for you. I’ll also be on IRC on Tuesday 28th to answer any questions you may have of me specifically, such as Luis’ questions about our position on software patents at http://tieguy.org/blog/2006/11/22/and-ubuntus-patent-stand/ There are a couple of sessions that would be particularly interesting for folks familiar with OpenSUSE. The Kubuntu team is hosting some events during the week to look at KDE and Ubuntu and to discuss the roadmap of their project. There are also a few events being hosted by the Ubuntu Desktop team’s, which I think should include some discussion of the ideas that came from the recent Ubuntu Developer Summit in Mountain View. There are a couple of Packaging 101 and Package Maintenance sessions too, specifically for developers. Ubuntu is structured to empower our community to get things done, and to maximise the opportunity for collaboration between teams that share a common vision (even if it’s not 100% of their vision, such as between the Gnome, KDE and XFCE desktop teams). While we’re always open to new members, we thought it would be a good idea to identify a dedicated week where new members would be the focus for our whole project. If you have an interest in being part of a vibrant community that cares about keeping free software widely available and protecting the rights of people to get it free of charge, free to modify, free of murky encumbrances and “undisclosed balance sheet liabilities”, then please do join us. I know that posting this message to an OpenSUSE list will be controversial. I'm greatly respectful of the long tradition of excellence in the SuSE product and community and have no desire to undermine that with this post. That said, I think the position taken by Novell leadership in their contract with Microsoft is hugely disrespectful of the contributions of thousands of GPL programmers and contributors to SuSE, and I know that many are looking for a new place to get involved that is not subject to the same arbitrary executive intervention. Ubuntu is one option, as are Gentoo, Debian and other communities. Please accept this mail in that spirit. Mark --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org