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.

  • @[email protected]
    43•4 months ago

    Doesn’t SUSE actively benefit from openSUSE development? I thought Tumbleweed and SLES had a similar relationship as Fedora and RHEL.

    • @[email protected]
      42•4 months ago

      Notice that “Fedora” does not have “Redhat” its name. Maybe the request is reasonable. I don’t know how many people think that thy don’t need SLES, because there is openSUSE.

      • @[email protected]
        10•4 months ago

        My comment was more about how SUSE benefits from openSUSE development (and vice-versa) and that Tumbleweed has a similar relationship to SLES as Fedora has to RHEL, as they are both upstream of their respective enterprise distributions.

        Besides, people don’t need SLES. Enterprises do because of the support they get. And I’d assume employees responsible for that kind of thing at such enterprises would know the difference.

        And the Red Hat logo is literally a fedora hat.

        If it’s just a name change done well, I couldn’t care less (although openSUSE is a very recognizable name and brand recognition would have to be reestablished). I just hope that this isn’t the beginning of something worse.

      • @[email protected]
        3•4 months ago

        Fedora/Redhat is a good example. It could be argued that the Linux distro scene was different 23 years ago, making it harder to be seen today.

        The thing I’m pondering is what the openSUSE community actually is. Does it exist as a group, or is it separate projects, each doing their own thing… for who? What is the overlap between people in the various distros, overlap in technology used in packaging and QA etc? Is it meaningful to talk about openSUSE as a distinct community separate from SUSE?

    • @[email protected]
      12•4 months ago

      SUSE provide a lot of the infrastructure for openSUSE and base their enterprise Linux from factory.