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.

  • LeFantome@programming.dev
    1·
    4 months ago

    Makes sense really.

    OpenSUSE is not the open version of SUSE ( SUSE Linux Enterprise - SLE ). If you compare to Red Hat, OpenSUSE is Fedora, not CentOS.

    I can see how people would get the wrong idea.

    It is a bit crappy that they waited so long though. On the desktop, OpenSUSE is quite an established brand.

  • moontorchy@lemmy.world
    0·
    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@piefed.socialEnglish
      1·
      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.

  • narc0tic_bird@lemm.ee
    0·
    4 months ago

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

    • mogoh@lemmy.ml
      1·
      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.