So How Free is openSUSE?

**IBC_drunk** · 15-Sep-2008, 14:52

Hello

Hopefully this doesn't start too much of a disagreement but in the past few weeks I've been reading about Novell teaming up with Microsoft. I've read many articles and am quite confused on what will come out of this. What do you guys think? Heres a few articles:

Andreas' Blog: openSUSE and Microsoft

Boycott Novell � How Microsoft Uses Even OpenSUSE and Freespire to Its Advantage (Updated)

Boycott Novell � Matt Asay: “Novell [is] a Mere Vassal to Microsoft”

Boycott Novell � More Proof That Novell is a Microsoft and OOXML Puppet

By the way, in no way am I here to start a "Novell/openSUSE haters club". I just want to know what you all think and get the facts straight.

**KJ44** · 15-Sep-2008, 15:00

Hot potato!

I can live with compromise.

**john_hudson** · 15-Sep-2008, 15:23

Very free; openSUSE is more open than many other distributions about what is OSS and what is NON-OSS and gives users the freedom of choice.

Novell is free to decide with whom to make business partnerships; Novell is also free to employ people who work on Gnome, KDE and OpenOffice.

Anyone who is serious about boycotting Novell has to boycott Gnome, KDE and lots of other Linux programs to which Novell employees have contributed.

**superppl** · 15-Sep-2008, 15:47

Originally Posted by john_hudson

Anyone who is serious about boycotting Novell has to boycott Gnome, KDE and lots of other Linux programs to which Novell employees have contributed.

Yes, in fact that person should take caution to ensure that are not using any the projects listed on this page.
That individual might as well stop using linux altogether.

**GofBorg** · 15-Sep-2008, 16:08

Kinda silly to me....if at some point you don't
agree with how things are...just leave. Same
thing I did with Red Hat long ago. Nice thing about Linux
is you can't really get tied to any particular distro.
It's not like you can't compile and run somewhere else.

If you feel you are getting tied down by any particular distro, then
I think you have a case for considering a move.

**IBC_drunk** · 15-Sep-2008, 16:11

I knew that Novell supported many projects but I never knew that it was that many.

**69_rs_ss** · 15-Sep-2008, 20:16

superppl wrote:
> john_hudson;1871663 Wrote:
>> Anyone who is serious about boycotting Novell has to boycott Gnome, KDE
>> and lots of other Linux programs to which Novell employees have
>> contributed.
>
> Yes, in fact that person should take caution to ensure that are not
> using any the projects listed on 'this page'
> (http://tr.opensuse.org/Novell_Supported_Projects).
> That individual might as well stop using linux altogether.
>
>
It's funny that the one project they missed on that list is the kernel
itself via Greg Kroah-Hartman so your last sentence really applies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Kroah-Hartman

**Chrysantine** · 16-Sep-2008, 04:51

Originally Posted by IBC_drunk

I just want to know what you all think and get the facts straight.

The fact is that Roy "Crackpot" Schestowitz who runs BoycottNovell is in need of serious psychological help - I personally believe that he suffers from at least two distinct psychological conditions - one of them being antisocial personality disorder in which he seems to have taken Novell as his primary target.

I find it sad that no one has yet been able to find him any professional counseling because he's in dire need of it.

**snakedriver** · 16-Sep-2008, 05:52

Originally Posted by superppl

Yes, in fact that person should take caution to ensure that are not using any the projects listed on this page.
That individual might as well stop using linux altogether.

An important one is missing from that list = The Linux Kernel