On 09/21/2010 04:13 AM, Simon Caseley wrote:
If VMware buys Novell's Linux business, it's a compelling value proposition for VMware customers: my experience is that customers like integrated solutions from a single vendor.
Great point Simon, I guess the uncertainty is "what does this mean for openSuSE?" It's speculation granted, but at the macro level, I don't seem much changing. If vmware wants Novell for whatever reason ...and... keeps SLES/SLED, then openSuSE should remain the test-bed/development arm for both. No company in their right mind would do away with all the free user contribution and support that goes into the opensuse pipeline. That being said, the touchstone for opensuse will hinge on their approach to either (1) maintaining opensuse as a quality opensource distro, or (2) whether they let it become a loose beta where the development is piped downstream to SLES/SLED or (3) whether they fall into the trap of shrinking release cycles to gen up revenue. The latter two are never good. We can "what if" this to death, but the bottom line is we will just have to wait and see. Regardless of whether a sale goes through, we are unlikely to have any idea of the direction any new owner will take or the consequence to opensuse until at earliest 11.5 (or whatever they call the one after 11.4) 11.4 is fairly well mapped out. My last .02 on the issue :p -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org