On Sun, 28 Jul 2002 23:42:19 -0400, Jul wrote:
On Sunday 28 July 2002 19:38, you wrote:
I have to say that SuSE rules... There is no question about it. You will
But not YaST2 - it is slow big and does not cover all functionality of YaST [1].
never find anything better, so go and buy 100 copies, support the SuSE team.
Do not be so fast As soon as they restore respect to long term supporters.
The installation is not the only reason for choosing a distribution. Most of the complaining I've seen has been on YaST2 being rammed down everyone's throats. Most of what I've heard otherwise on SuSE 8.0 is that it's a well put-together distribution. Of course, I can't tell, since the one machine I had an opportunity to try SuSE 8.0 on is the one I wound up going back to SuSE 7.3 for. You still have a point, however. The decision to drop YaST was an unfortunate one, which many of us would have advised against. I doubt that SuSE management foresaw the resulting outcry. There are two messages to be gleaned from all this: 1) For a great many of their customers, SuSE isn't just another distribution. It isn't just marketing hype -- we've found a really good distribution which we care about. We want it to stay that way, and SuSE sees some sales as a result. 2) A diversity of tools is a strength which appeals to more people in more situations with more systems. This is a technical advantage easily lost on accountants. But it's also one of the things that makes open source work (even though YaST is not open source). SuSE would do well to heed these lessons; their customer base will erode if they start to look like just another distribution. This leads back to what corporate types really care about: the bottom line on quarterly results. My understanding is that SuSE, at least in Germany, was profitable. Is this still the case? If so, that's an accomplishment in these times which hardly justifies an attempt to fix what wasn't broken. -- David Benfell, LCP benfell@parts-unknown.org --- Resume available at http://www.parts-unknown.org/resume.html