Am 20.04.2011 20:15, schrieb Pascal Bleser:

On 2011-04-20 19:16:43 (+0200), Kim Leyendecker wrote: [...]

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The two Balsam products would realize this missed "feature". Are we support these guys at open-SLX who are creating this distro?

First thing I have to say. I liked (and still like) the idea that openSUSE still can be ordered as a product so in general I found it a good thing that open-slx took over. But

1) never announced on any of the opensuse mailing-lists or forums or whatever or, if so, very well hidden

2) none of us non-openslx-employees-opensuse-community-members have ever heard of it until very recently, by chance

I don't like the way how open-slx does community work. Actually I'm wondering if they fear to interact with the community or they consider it useless. (There even is a community manager but I'm not sure which community is managed here).

3) there has not been any request for permission to use the openSUSE trademarks for this derivative work

According to http://www.pro-linux.de/news/1/16913/opensuse-box-wird-zu-balsam-professiona... (german language) the reason for renaming the product was partly because of the openSUSE trademark.

4) its description says it adds proprietary packages and drivers to openSUSE -- I wonder which and if it's nVidia or ATI/AMD or madwifi drivers, it would infringe on the kernel license (GPL), reason for which Novell is not including it in the distribution nor its repositories, nor allowing it to be hosted on any server on Novell's infrastructure

That might be true and I'm not commenting more on legal stuff.

5) given the name "Balsam" and it's German meaning ("putting balsam on someone's heart" = "soften the pain"), and the lack of communication (to say the least), as well as one infamous initiative open-slx took recently with community.open-slx.de, it does make me wonder whether they just believe that we suck and that they have to solve everything on their own without involving us at all

Exactly. That's what I tried to say above. Wolfgang -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Hi Kim, others, Quick intro: I'm sebas, I work for open-slx as UX lead, these days almost exclusively on Plasma Active. I'm mostly an upstream KDE hacker, and also do some organisational work for KDE as well (release team, board of directors, etc.). On Wednesday, April 20, 2011 21:20:52 Kim Leyendecker wrote:

Am 20.04.2011 20:51, schrieb Wolfgang Rosenauer:

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Am 20.04.2011 20:15, schrieb Pascal Bleser:

...

On 2011-04-20 19:16:43 (+0200), Kim Leyendecker wrote: [...]

...

The two Balsam products would realize this missed "feature". Are we support these guys at open-SLX who are creating this distro?

First thing I have to say. I liked (and still like) the idea that openSUSE still can be ordered as a product so in general I found it a good thing that open-slx took over.

Thanks =)

...

...

3) there has not been any request for permission to use the

openSUSE trademarks for this derivative work

According to http://www.pro-linux.de/news/1/16913/opensuse-box-wird-zu-balsam-profess ional.html (german language) the reason for renaming the product was partly because of the openSUSE trademark.

Yes, exactly. The trademark guidelines are very clear in what you can use openSUSE for, and under which conditions you have to change the name. I welcome these clear guidelines, personally. It's a good idea and an important communication tool if you want to draw a clear line between community and corporate interest. As we are going some new ways with our product Balsam, which is /based on openSUSE/, we needed to define our own identity. Also, being dependent, trademark-wise from another company or organisation is generally not a good idea for the continuity of your business. The step is quite logical, IMO.

So, there isn´t any collaboration on this products between openSUSE/Novell and open-slx as I understood it right.

There's actually a lot of collaboration, it's happening on OBS, in the opensuse-kde team, and on the #opensuse-kde, #plasma and #active IRC channels. Hop by if you would like to learn more :)

I think I have to ask at open-slx and Novell as well to beeing sure, because I actually wanted to blog about it and creating an article for news.o.o.

If you want to blog about it, I can provide you information if you have questions. Just send me an email about that.

Well, I don´t know who is not working together with us or not, and I think we shouldn´t discuss it here on the list. So, thanks for you answers guys.

I much rather concentrate on the areas where we are working together, assuming that we do have different focuses, which is of course fine. From my point of view, the collaboration is actually quite good. I've experienced excellent atmosphere and productivity especially within the opensuse-kde team. Whatever is going on here on -project, I tend to ignore mostly as the signal to noise to usefulness ratio is very limited, unfortunately, and my work is much more focused. We're working on Plasma Active in the KDE:Active OBS repo. Also, I've seen quite some people already installing openSUSE because of Plasma Active. Mostly developers at this point, but it starts growing the community already. With Plasma Active, we're creating a new user experiene for devices such as tablet PC's, media center, and others, you can find more info on http://community.kde.org/Plasma/Active A short video of it is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GAFfjscVyg (Yes, this is running on openSUSE :-))

---------------------------------------------- A side note for the open-slx readers, if you felt touched:

No harm done :)

Please, if you want to work together with openSUSE let us know. We have a great community manager and a great programm manager who do great work for people who starting contribute to the community.

Jos is actually a friend of mine, when he's not hanging out in Brazil, he lives about an hour by train from here =) We actually are working together really well, just not on every level, and that is fine. With more companies than Novell, Attachmate alone getting involved in openSUSE (which is a good thing, as it grows the community and makes it more stable also on a corporate level), there need to be clear boundaries between direct contributions. We contribute a lot on the code level, my colleague Rupert is on the opensuse board, and our code output ends up directly upstream, either inside upstream repos such as KDE's git, or the OBS (most recently in KDE:Active). My colleague Sascha is also quite active on the news team, you probably know him :) I personally prefer sitting down and getting the job done, and mostly blog about it. I don't write much to opensuse-project, as you know.

Your product looks really interesting and "Balsam Enterprise" is a big chance for SLE to take over the market leadership (Look at Red Hat. RHEL is so successfull because there two clones and they allow you to test RHEL till whenever you want... A free SLE-clone would make SLE more open and of course, more successfully, believe me.)

I think so, too. There's a distinct hole in the market between service levels and pricing of SLES, and openSUSE itself. Very recently, Novell has removed some contractual hurdles, and made it possible for us to offer something like Balsam Enterprise, modeled after how CentOS relates to RedHat, or put simply, an LTS for openSUSE outside the enterprise market. The customer gets more independence and better choice, more of the market is covered. That's a win for openSUSE as base technology and community, as you say. Cheers, -- sebas Sebastian Kügler :: Open-SLX -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Wed, 20 Apr 2011 22:59:08 +0200, Pascal Bleser wrote:

I don't get it, what's the purpose of doing that on your own by explicitly not seeking collaboration with the community ? What's your advantage in doing so ?

I have to admit that I'm a bit puzzled by Sebastian's comments as well. There were lots of questions about the community pages for open-slx and I never was very satisfied with what answers I got about why there was a need to divide the community with a separate set of forums and communications channels. I don't feel that there's been very much collaboration on the community end of things at all. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Hi Pascal, On Wednesday, April 20, 2011 22:59:08 Pascal Bleser wrote:

Why not use Evergreen as a base and contribute to that ?

Is Evergreen binary-compatible to SLES? This is an important part of the offering of both, SLES and Balsam Enterprise, since it provides much easier -- and thus less costly -- integration between both products. It is in fact the same code, but in a different product package, addressing different market needs. You can compare it to CentOS and RHEL. I have to add that I am not very much into this topic, since I'm working on the Active UX. If you have any questions about Balsam Enterprise, please email Stefan Werden, either using his personal email, or enterprise@open-slx.com. Cheers, -- sebas Sebastian Kügler :: Open-SLX -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Am 21.04.2011 02:07, schrieb Pascal Bleser:

On 2011-04-21 01:02:53 (+0200), Sebastian Kügler wrote:

...

On Wednesday, April 20, 2011 22:59:08 Pascal Bleser wrote:

...

Why not use Evergreen as a base and contribute to that ?

Is Evergreen binary-compatible to SLES? This is an important part of the offering of both, SLES and Balsam Enterprise, since it provides much easier -- and thus less costly -- integration between both products. It is in fact the same code, but in a different product package, addressing different market needs. You can compare it to CentOS and RHEL.

Oooooh, okay, so Balsam Enterprise is based on SLES ?

So you guys are doing what we've been asked specifically _not_ to do because it would harm Novell's business ?

Now that's interesting. I mean really interesting.

That's also strange IMHO. Sorry, again german: http://www.pro-linux.de/news/1/16968/balsam-enterprise-angekuendigt.html This is actually saying pretty nothing. "Die Lösung wird in einer freien Download-Version verfügbar sein. Kunden, die Support und Maintenance benötigen, sollen zudem entsprechende Leistungen bei open-slx ordern können. Der Preis sollt laut Aussage des Produzenten zwischen 40 und 60 Prozent unterhalb des Originals liegen." So it'll be freely downloadable (like SLES) and customers who need support and maintenance can buy it from open-slx for around 40-60 percent below SLES' price. That description means it's actually the very same thing for some bucks less. So the article can be understood that this version does not get updates for free (very same for SLES). So it's apparently nothing like CentOS where the software and updates will be free. I'm still following this with interest since I said in the past there is no point in doing LTS aka Evergreen if there is a really free (like CentOS) clone of SLES. Wolfgang -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Am 21.04.2011 02:07, schrieb Pascal Bleser:

So you guys are doing what we've been asked specifically_not_ to do because it would harm Novell's business ? Please tell me the reasons why it would harm Novell´s business?

Well, it wouldn´t harm Novell´s business. Do it harm Red Hat when there´s a free clone of their RHEL? No, the oposite is the case. Novell would get a bigger community which supports SLE. Why? Because I can free download the clone, and get the updates. So I can test the clone how long I wanted to test it and then buy a "real" SLE. I´m already familiar with SLE and would be more secure to use it. That´s the way how the RHEL/CentOS-modell runs. And by the way, there many users who really want some kind of SuSE Professional for middle companies like SuSE has offered in the past. thanks -- Kim Leyendecker (kimleyendecker@hotmail.de) openSUSE Ambassador / openSUSE Wiki Team DE HAVE A LOT OF FUN! http://www.opensuse.org | http://www.suse.de Have you tried SUSE Studio? Need to create a Live CD, an app you want to package and distribute , or create your own linux distro. Give SUSE Studio a try. www.susestudio.com. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Hi Sebas! On Apr 21, 11 12:56:57 +0200, Sebastian Kügler wrote:

As you might know, there was a contract between Novell and open-slx, in which both companies had agreed that, among other things, open-slx would not start an Enterprise version (very roughly put). This contract has been terminated by Novell recently, allowing open-slx to also announce an enterprise product.

Rough indeed. I believe, the contract was mostly beneficial to open-slx. Otherwise, open-slx would have exercised its right to terminate much earlier. No need to wait for Novell to take action.

It seems you were not informed about that, although I have to point out that you could have read it in the press release.

From what I learned through the media, the contract may now expire (unless renewed). The immediate announcement of an enterprise product was a surprise to me.

cheers, JW- -- o \ Juergen Weigert paint it green! __/ _=======.=======_ <V> | jw@suse.de back to ascii! __/ _---|____________\/ \ | 0911 74053-508 __/ (____/ /\ (/) | _____________________________/ _/ \_ vim:set sw=2 wm=8 SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nuernberg) SuSE. Supporting Linux since 1992. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Am 20.04.2011 22:59, schrieb Pascal Bleser:

How is "Balsam Enterprise" a clone of SLE ? It's an "openSUSE LTS", not a "clone of SLE", those are totally different things. I just repeat this, what´s standing on Pro-Linux.

"A product based on SLES12..." -- Kim Leyendecker (kimleyendecker@hotmail.de) openSUSE Ambassador / openSUSE Wiki Team DE HAVE A LOT OF FUN! http://www.opensuse.org | http://www.suse.de Have you tried SUSE Studio? Need to create a Live CD, an app you want to package and distribute , or create your own linux distro. Give SUSE Studio a try. www.susestudio.com. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Am 20.04.2011 22:10, schrieb Sebastian Kügler:

Jos is actually a friend of mine, when he's not hanging out in Brazil, he lives about an hour by train from here =)

We actually are working together really well, just not on every level, and that is fine. With more companies than Novell, Attachmate alone getting involved in openSUSE (which is a good thing, as it grows the community and makes it more stable also on a corporate level), there need to be clear boundaries between direct contributions. We contribute a lot on the code level, my colleague Rupert is on the opensuse board, and our code output ends up directly upstream, either inside upstream repos such as KDE's git, or the OBS (most recently in KDE:Active). My colleague Sascha is also quite active on the news team, you probably know him:)

I personally prefer sitting down and getting the job done, and mostly blog about it. I don't write much to opensuse-project, as you know.

Yeah, I know Sascha, of course. A nice guy. So, what you´re writting about Attachmate and Novell and so on, there are my hopes that it would be catch up into the openSUSE foundation.

...

...

Your product looks really interesting and "Balsam Enterprise" is a big chance for SLE to take over the market leadership (Look at Red Hat. RHEL is so successfull because there two clones and they allow you to test RHEL till whenever you want... A free SLE-clone would make SLE more open and of course, more successfully, believe me.) I think so, too. There's a distinct hole in the market between service levels and pricing of SLES, and openSUSE itself. Very recently, Novell has removed some contractual hurdles, and made it possible for us to offer something like Balsam Enterprise, modeled after how CentOS relates to RedHat, or put simply, an LTS for openSUSE outside the enterprise market. The customer gets more independence and better choice, more of the market is covered. That's a win for openSUSE as base technology and community, as you say.

But the whole story needs following: * Complete rebranding of the product * free updates * free support by the SLE-clone community If these things don´t happen really, it´s just a waste of time, and you´d better join the openSUSE community fulltime. thanks -- Kim Leyendecker (kimleyendecker@hotmail.de) openSUSE Ambassador / openSUSE Wiki Team DE HAVE A LOT OF FUN! http://www.opensuse.org | http://www.suse.de Have you tried SUSE Studio? Need to create a Live CD, an app you want to package and distribute , or create your own linux distro. Give SUSE Studio a try. www.susestudio.com. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org