Breaking: The openSUSE Board discusses SUSE's request to stop using its brand, highlighting the need for cooperation and goodwill.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/37281970

Believe it or not, an unexpected conflict has arisen in the openSUSE community with its long-time supporter and namesake, the SUSE company.

At the heart of this tension lies a quiet request that has stirred not-so-quiet ripples across the open source landscape: SUSE has formally asked openSUSE to discontinue using its brand name.

Richard Brown, a key figure within the openSUSE project, shared insights into the discussions that have unfolded behind closed doors.

Despite SUSE’s request’s calm and respectful tone, the implications of not meeting it could be far-reaching, threatening the symbiotic relationship that has benefited both entities over the years.

  • @moontorchy
    83•4 months ago

    Oh wow. SUSE family of distribution is relatively small footprint. Whole story sounds like “splitting the hair”. The only reasonable explanation is that SUSE hired some self-glorified marketer from big corp. omg…

    • fr0g
      58•4 months ago

      No, there are good reasons for it. A lot of people get confused between SUSE and openSUSE offerings. Often SUSE customers show up in openSUSE places, because they believe that it’s a place they can get official support. And I’m sure a lot of potential customers might get confused in the same way too.
      On the flip side there are also a lot of openSUSE (adjacent) users who think SUSE is (secretly or not) making openSUSE development decisions or think they can dand SUSE to do that and that.

      So there are some good reasons to consider a rebranding, but also some speaking against it, like the less of recognition it might entail.

      • AggressivelyPassive
        29•4 months ago

        And you really think, people who are willing and able to buy enterprise support for their Linux distro get confused by the naming? Sure, there’s that one confused dude, but you also have people asking Facebook where they left their keys.

        OpenSuse is essentially free marketing for SUSE, nobody would know them otherwise. Why would you give that away?

        Suse is not a huge company, it has neither a large enterprise backer nor any killer features, and its market share is relatively small compared to Red Hat or Canonical. Throwing away free marketing while alienating a relatively passionate community is a kind of brainrot only MBA can come up with.

        • fr0gEnglish
          21•4 months ago

          And you really think, people who are willing and able to buy enterprise support for their Linux distro get confused by the naming?

          No, I don’t think that. I *know* that because I’m active in the community.

          OpenSuse is essentially free marketing for SUSE, nobody would know them otherwise.

          That is absolute nonsense. SUSE mostly serves large enterprise customers. That’s an entirely different demographic from people who care about Desktop Linux or setting up a home server.

          Edit:

          its market share is relatively small compared to Red Hat or Canonical.

          I’m pretty sure SUSE is bigger than Canonical.

          Editedit: According to wikipedia SUSE’s revenue is about twice as high as Canonical’s

          • AggressivelyPassive
            4•4 months ago

            That is absolute nonsense. SUSE mostly serves large enterprise customers.

            And where do you think the people deciding what to buy get their information? Mind share is important.

            I’m pretty sure SUSE is bigger than Canonical.

            That’s actually surprising to me, but I’d argue that Suse offers more products, it seems like Rancher, Longhorn, etc. have no canonical equivalent.

          • @panicnow
            3•4 months ago

            I’m surprised and happy that SUSE is still doing well. I have fond memories of using SUSE in the enterprise especially around their “perfect guest” campaign for using it in virtualized environments. I thought they had very well-baked integration with large Windows networks—things just worked out of the box that didn’t with RHEL. I’m sure a lot has changed in the last decade but I appreciated their cooperative stance in the enterprise.

        • Ulu-Mulu-no-dieEnglish
          3•4 months ago

          OpenSuse is essentially free marketing for SUSE, nobody would know them otherwise

          I’ve been working for big enterprises for many years, SUSE is used in enterprise environment to run SAP systems because it’s recommended by SAP, OpenSuse has nothing to do with that.

          • @[email protected]
            1•4 months ago

            And relying on marketing by someone you don’t control is not good decision even if losing some mind share.

      • @[email protected]
        1•4 months ago

        I am in the linux world 20+ years. Used SUSE for short amout of time back than and never really cared much about it, just glad it still exist.

        This is the first time I am hearing openSUSE is not part od SUSE.

        Having different name should be good for all. I think openSUSE people should have done it long time ago. But sounds like name is not the only problem.