Hi, On Sat, 10 Sep 2005, Marcel Volz wrote:
Am Samstag, 10. September 2005 16:37 schrieb Pascal Bleser:
Marcel Volz wrote:
What about a openSUSE Server Version, just like CentOS or Whitebox ? Perhaps with the same core as SLES? Is there a chance that Novell or openSUSE release such a distribution?
Novell does, it's called SLES.
But it's not OpenSource! I like SLES very much and work with it very often. I would like to see a OpenSource Enterprise Server based on my favourite distribution.
SLES is always based on SUSE-Linux. SLES9 is deerived from SUSE-9.1. SLES10 will be derived from SUSE-10.x.
I know that Novell want to earn money with their Server Product, but I think most of the money will be made with additional services and addons, like the Novell Enterprise Services, Groupwise or eDirectory.
Why should Novell "open" SLES ? That doesn't make any sense, as SLES uses packages that are in SUSE Linux and is made of opensource software you can have on SUSE Linux as well. It's just that it comes with a lot of services and guarantees. (it does have some additional modules, e.g. in YaST2, but nevertheless)
I use SUSE Linux as Server at home and sometimes at work, but I don't get the bugfixes and security updates that are needed to implement it at most business.
I'm not at Novell and i don't know how much Novell earn with each SLES license, but I don't think that this is much. Maybe much more could be earned if there is a open source version and the additional services would be sold. With the Open Source Version there could be a much more widespread. But that's only my opinion.
How would you define "open source maintenance"? You can download SLES-9 from novell.com for free (and even get a 30-days maintenance), but after evaluation, you have to pay if you want to get further maintenance. And: you would have to pay just for maintenance, nothing more. Totally transparent to me, the maintainers need their payment, and Novell lacks the license to print money.
But feel free to start a new SUSE variant specialized on servers and based on SUSE Linux 10.0, just like Andreas Girardet does with SUPER: http://opensuse.org/SUPER That's what "openSUSE" is really about ;)
Maybe I think about it. But I don't know if it make sense. For a "Enterprise Distribution" you need a long lifecycle, reliable security update and bugfixes, hardware and software certification and much more. I don't think that a community could do this.
The "long lifecycle" is just the point where most competent expert work is needed. This has to get payed, or it will disappear... Cheers -e -- Eberhard Moenkeberg (emoenke@gwdg.de, em@kki.org)