Re: [opensuse-project] Slogan proposal: openSUSE - Not for my mom, but for tech enthusiasts
I think we are not talking about what Novell has done for the community
or what Ubuntu has done, but the fact that there are two communitites,
the open one (openSuSE) and the "consortium one" (SLED/S).
The
first is open to everyone, but has no commercial support, no security
certification (I am talking about EAL), no certification of
professionals or companies. The second one has all that but it is not
open to everyone. Only the ones that have paid would have the updates
and the code of them, so it is something like a consortium.
In
the other hand, Ubuntu has only one community, one distribution, and
everyone gets the updates. But it is not EAL4+ certified (that takes
time, so money, to do it).
Then, we have two communities, two
distributions, two bug trackers,.... and also we have to pay a license
for using each SLED or SLES (so it is not really free). SLES and SLED
are products based on free (as in speech) code but are not free ( the
updates can not be redistributed).
In my opinion, it would be
better to have only one big and strong open community around SLED and
SLES and not base the business on the licenses, but on hours of support
(for example you could pay x€ a year for having Yhours of support), and
on certify partners, certify hardware, certify software and develop
custom solutions based on SLES and SLED (Point of Sale for example).
However, this is more difficult than selling licenses (and less
scalable) but you may have a better product.
Having one
community does not mean having only one distribution. Well done, we
could have multiple ones (Desktop Professional, Server Professional,
POS, Education, Home Desktop, ....) build using the OpenBuildService,
but have some common code (code10, code11, ....) and some especific one
(for example the Home Desktop could have some stuff that is not EAL4+
certified (OpenSuSE right now?)).
Teorically, it should be
more productive to have one community based on the same code and
multiple products than having multiple communities, right?
Just my 5c.
greetings,
----- Mensaje original ----
De: Silviu Marin-Caea
The reason I would purchase SLED, SLES is to receive world class tiered support, printed documentation, voice support, indemnification, etc.
You are kidding yourself with the support story. This just doesn't bring enough cash. I don't see people buy support if the product runs well. Novell would starve. It's a vicious circle that I don't know an escape for. Oracle support is making nice cash, but does Oracle run well? Oh, my... Printed documentation and xROMware mean a logistics effort that cancels almost all profit that can be made selling that. Software IT companies try to make money online these days, without moving boxes. I am curious as to Ubuntu LTS sales, that actually bring money in. Ubuntu was and is always in the red. It's just some dude that happens to like this toy and spends money on it. It's not so bad for Linux actually, but it just doesn't feel sustainable. I am also curious about the number of core, heavy stuff developers that Ubuntu pays salaries to? Do they have any kernel people, glibc people on payroll, like Novell does? Wouldn't think so. However, Mr. Mark Shuttleworth is a KDE patron, so that's something. But I don't know how much this means in cold hard cash. Would be interesting. What is Novell supposed to do? Adopt a dot com billionaire willing to spend the dough? Yet, the "community" is suckered like a stupid bitch on Ubuntu ware. Novell did a number of great deeds with SUSE, like making the ISOs download-able, paying developers for the heavy stuff I mentioned above and so on. Novell practically _makes_ Gnome, and a lot of KDE too. Does Novell make this known to the community? Not so much. Do the Ubuntu crowd know about the contributions that Novell makes? Doubtly (they are all bent on the MS deal that has wiped away in a second all the rest of the good stuff). With all this worthy material to work with, the Novell marketing manages to not make good use of it. Gee, I wonder how much do those Microsoft marketing people cost? :-) Ubuntu is a packaging distro. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org ____________________________________________________________________________________ LLama Gratis a cualquier PC del Mundo. Llamadas a fijos y móviles desde 1 céntimo por minuto. http://es.voice.yahoo.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On Wednesday 02 May 2007 03:39, Jordi Massaguer wrote:
I think we are not talking about what Novell has done for the community or what Ubuntu has done, but the fact that there are two communitites, the open one (openSuSE) and the "consortium one" (SLED/S).
The first is open to everyone, but has no commercial support, no security certification (I am talking about EAL), no certification of professionals or companies. The second one has all that but it is not open to everyone. Only the ones that have paid would have the updates and the code of them, so it is something like a consortium.
In the other hand, Ubuntu has only one community, one distribution, and everyone gets the updates. But it is not EAL4+ certified (that takes time, so money, to do it).
Then, we have two communities, two distributions, two bug trackers,.... and also we have to pay a license for using each SLED or SLES (so it is not really free). SLES and SLED are products based on free (as in speech) code but are not free ( the updates can not be redistributed).
In my opinion, it would be better to have only one big and strong open community around SLED and SLES and not base the business on the licenses, but on hours of support (for example you could pay x€ a year for having Yhours of support), and on certify partners, certify hardware, certify software and develop custom solutions based on SLES and SLED (Point of Sale for example). However, this is more difficult than selling licenses (and less scalable) but you may have a better product.
Having one community does not mean having only one distribution. Well done, we could have multiple ones (Desktop Professional, Server Professional, POS, Education, Home Desktop, ....) build using the OpenBuildService, but have some common code (code10, code11, ....) and some especific one (for example the Home Desktop could have some stuff that is not EAL4+ certified (OpenSuSE right now?)).
Teorically, it should be more productive to have one community based on the same code and multiple products than having multiple communities, right?
Just my 5c. From an outsiders perspective this looks like what is emerging from the happenings of late , ie the gnome team coming out to work with opensuse. I see opensuse\SLED as being a cumulative work. The code starts with the really innovative and hard working opensuse community and moves inward toward stability and certification with the dedicated professionals at SUSE\Novell. Yes, there is a blur of those lines because there are SUSE\Novell members working with the community. I think it is a misinterpretation of what the cost of SLED is to call it licensing. I think it has been and be should be marketed as long term support. If you purchase a "subscription" to SLED you get a year of patches\updates and online support for the worlds most stable, innovative, enterprise ready desktop, all of 50 $ US. Still sounds like the best OS deal going to me, even though my personal HD is loaded with 10.2. ;) -- James Tremblay Director of Technology Newmarket School District Novell CNE 3\4\5 CLE \ NCE in training. http://en.opensuse.org/education
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participants (2)
-
James Tremblay -
Jordi Massaguer