In another soapbox thread, it was said that there is only a German boxed set. Not so:
I do not think that is a pure openSUSE-12.1, but rather I think it is a fork or a derivative …
That is Balsam open-slx - Welcome which is the fork.
http://thumbnails52.imagebam.com/16804/7ab3b5168035319.jpg](ImageBam)
There is a German openSUSE version that is NOT Balsam : openSUSE 12.1 mit Abo-Service erschienen bei Open Source Press
http://thumbnails59.imagebam.com/16804/de035d168035320.jpg](ImageBam)
Well one thing: they refer to the openSUSE wiki, forums etc. So no forked forums AFAICS. Still I think this is a bad thing. If buying, I’m buying openSUSE, not Balsam.
They have their own support forums etc…
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Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 12.1 (x86_64) Kernel 3.1.0-1.2-desktop
up 1 day 18:42, 3 users, load average: 0.03, 0.03, 0.05
CPU Intel i5 CPU M520@2.40GHz | Intel Arrandale GPU
Well, swerdna said there was no non-German boxed set. No stipulation about derivatives or whatever. This is not so. It only remains for someone to do the same as edv-buchversand.de but in English. The main thing is to print an English manual off the doco on the DVD.
I think it’s only a matter of time before someone provides the manual in e-reader friendly format, and then we wouldn’t have to use so many trees.
On 01/04/2012 11:35 PM, malcolmlewis wrote:
>
> They have their own support forums etc…
really??
on http://www.open-slx.com/en/?Community i see “openSUSE Forums”
will Balsam be another fork/variant like Evergreen, Tumbleweed,
Education, or Medical which may at any time be presented in any forum
here as “the latest suse” by those who don’t actually know what they
have is different??
amazing that ‘they’ are so adverse to coming here that they can’t even
have the good manners to ASK if we would like to help them sell their
Balsam, by providing support!
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DD
openSUSE®, the “German Engineered Automobiles” of operating systems!
Interesting indeed…
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Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 12.1 (x86_64) Kernel 3.1.0-1.2-desktop
up 1 day 20:13, 3 users, load average: 0.00, 0.03, 0.05
CPU Intel i5 CPU M520@2.40GHz | Intel Arrandale GPU
On Thu, 05 Jan 2012 00:12:59 +0000, malcolmlewis wrote:
> Interesting indeed…
Yes, I found their German forums from the front page of the website.
Jim
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Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C
So why are you forcing this negative stuff and why should Balsam Professional be a fork of openSUSE? It is just negative statements without any proof!
open-slx is producing the “traditional openSUSE Box product” since november 2009. We were asked to continue the box product because at this time Novell stopped producing this product. So open-slx is producing it including professional installation support. As fas as I know no other Box including support is manufactured by anybody else since today.
We renamed the our product to Balsam Professional because we are including Plasma Active the new touch UX für Tablets and Touchscreens. Because of the very strick branding guidlines we must change the name of the product. This implies a change of the branding because of the artwork stuff. That are basicly the changes to openSUSE 11.4 Box. You can download the image from our download side and check this.
Currently open-slx is producing the only “openSUSE Box” including professional installation support. This is true for german and for the international english version. You all need to differentiate if a DVD is in a Box or if the Box is in the line with the old openSUSE Box. I know since 12.1 there is a “Box-looking” product, but it does not include professional installtion support. It includes something like every distri, including Balsam Professional has, that was ubuntu calls forum support. This means the box vendor is selling community effords. So this are basicly the facts and not the “politics”.
Beside of that we know a lot of discussion about who is allowed to use the name openSUSE even in press text, product text and other text with pointing to artwork stuff. All of this is almost wrong, because nobody can claim single words and we have freedom of press. Currently open-slx is deleting almost any openSUSE word if such questions arising. This has nothing to do with legal. We just think that it does not makes any sense to fight for because openSUSE is hurt so much itself.
Regarding you fork statement: Ususall the project itself say that it is a fork. open Balsam Professional this comes out of some community members. So focussing on the characteristics what a fork would include:
- the source code is forked, for example setting up a new git repositore. This was not done
- official statement in the press that the new project is a fork. This was not done
- splitting the community and part of the community is walking to the new project. This was not done.
Just take a look what happens in the open office space. We have there several real forks.
Regarding some negative statements about the “portal” hosted by open-slx. The project was created together with the former community manager Michael Löffler. All board members and openSUSE booster were informened. So open-slx walked forward with the goal to launch it in the openSUSE space. But when we were ready, the board and the boosters turned there opinion and want to stop this. So open-slx was forced to host it in our own domain. open-slx also spendet a lot of money in the openSUSE Portal, especially in the german and the english portal space. But the admins only launche the english one. So the complete work was lost. There are more reasons, but this is history.
Balsam Professiona as a product is fully based on openSUSE and it except the branding and the naming alsmost identically. So talking different in the community can only have two reasons. Just had never really looked what Balsam Professional is, - or playing political incorrect.
Anyway, we don’t tell people what they have to say and what not. It is just there meaning. But anybody has to take responsibility of what he is saying. And as a matter of a fact: A lot of places in the distric cometition are much nicer and fairer places as openSUSE is today. So it would be good to change this in the future.
Hope this clears up most of your questions on this thread. Ask people in the community why they are talking negative without having facts.
regards,
Stefan
On 2012-01-04 22:36, oldcpu wrote:
>
> ken_yap;2426496 Wrote:
>> In another soapbox thread, it was said that there is only a German boxed
>> set. Not so:
>>
>> ‘open-slx - Welcome’ (http://www.open-slx.com/en/)
>
> I do not think that is a pure openSUSE-12.1, but rather I think it is a
> fork or a derivative …
Weird.
I have several boxes from them, the last one for 11.3. I got them, as
several other people, as complimentary presents for helping openSUSE (I’m a
translator), so clearly there was a relation between SUSE/Novell and SLX.
The box and DVD is (was) clearly labeled openSUSE. It contained paper
books, double layer DVD, plus another one post-labeled “balsam extensions”,
which I have not looked at inside …] Just had a look, I’m not clear what
it is. Customizations perhaps. And it included installation support.
There are posts in the forums from someone from SLX, Stefan Werden, the
Managing Director. He was, IIRC, an -ex-SUSE employee, who saw an
opportunity with continuing selling the box that Novell did not any longer.
View this thread: http://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php?t=426342
I see in his profile that he wrote a post today, but I don’t know where.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
Hi
So why not just produce an openSUSE box set as well as your version?
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Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 12.1 (x86_64) Kernel 3.1.0-1.2-desktop
up 1 day 4:11, 5 users, load average: 0.00, 0.02, 0.05
CPU Intel i5 CPU M520@2.40GHz | Intel Arrandale GPU
Hi Stefan,
Thanks for your input.
Since you specifically quoted MY post and no one elses, PLEASE, would you re-read my post. Note I stated it was a fork OR a derivative.
From your clarification it appears:
(1) you are fixated on the word ‘fork’ and ignored the rest of my post, where I noted ‘or derivative’ AND you also seem to think I am of the opinion that software forks are a negative thing (I am NOT of that opinion). I also note again that I did state ‘fork or derivative’ .
(2) from your description Balsam appears to me now to be a derivative (and for the record so I am not accused again of a negative view, I do not view derivatives in a negative light),
(3) there may be negative statements in this thread but they are not from me, … at least not until this post - where I am a bit negative about how you quoted me.
Thank you again for your information on Balsam. I wish the packagers of Balsam all the best.
On 2012-01-07 19:26, swerden wrote:
> Hope this clears up most of your questions on this thread. Ask people
> in the community why they are talking negative without having facts.
We don’t have facts unless you take the effort to inform us 
I have your 11.3 box (and 11.2) here by me. It is labeled “openSUSE”, and
open-slx in smaller print more difficult to find.
The photo I see of the 12.1 box is labeled “balsam”. I do not like that.
Even if you say that it is based in openSUSE, I can not feel it as
openSUSE. I do not understand why despite your explanations, and I don’t
like it. Perhaps there is a language barrier.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
It must be my fault. I purchased the 11.3 boxed set. Since then I have downloaded. Evidently, that jinxed everything 
Some pretty harsh sounding statements there. This is ironic, because their primary North American online store for selling Balsam 12.1, a Yahoo! storefront, uses the term “openSUSE” or “SUSE” 7 times, including twice in the name of the web page:
Looking back again at my post, I see I stated fork twice and derivative once :
I do not think that is a pure openSUSE-12.1, but rather I think it is a fork or a derivative …
That is Balsam open-slx - Welcome which is the fork.
and I guess it had to have been my words just before the pix (where I did not bother to retype ‘or a derivative’ a second time) that set things off. < sigh >
… Definitely there was no negative intent on my side. As noted I’m a believer in both derivatives and forks, and in this case based on the little I have read so far, this is a package that has all the original openSUSE.
My personal view (which is not an official forum view - as from a moderator perspective I would be neutral) I’m all in favour of such efforts as Balsam.
This reads to me to be pretty interesting. I don’t have a Touchscreen on my home PC but I do think Touchscreens are the way of the future.
I’ve been fortunate to have an Asus Transformer (original version) the past couple of months, and I find it an amazing device with its touch screen and portability, and I can’t imagine myself now doing without such a device. In fact many times I find myself absent mindedly trying to move things with my finger on my desktop display, only to wake up and recall that my desktop screen is NOT a touch screen. Too bad ! … Ergo it is good to see a version of openSUSE GNU/Linux moving ahead in the Touchscreen screen area because I venture in 5 to 10 years many desktop displays will also be touch screen.
I note this link on KDE and Plasma Active where they note:
Plasma Active runs on the proven Linux desktop stack, including the Linux kernel, Qt and KDE’s Plasma Framework. The user interface is designed using Plasma Quick, a declarative markup language allowing for organic user interface design based on Qt Quick. Plasma Active uses existing Free desktop technology and brings it to a spectrum of devices through a device-specific user interface. Classical Plasma Widgets can be used on Plasma Active as well as newly created ones. The key driver for the development of Plasma Active is the user experience. Collaboration is made easy through high-level development tools and a well defined process.
Plasma Active focuses on mobile devices, like tablet computers. Plasma Active Tablet’s user experience is designed around the web, social networks and multimedia content.
IMHO its far better to focus on the positive benefits from an packaging of an openSUSE version (and not get hung up over the branding). Note its ‘IMHO’ (and this is soapbox forum area) … And I like seeing development of the User Interface in this touchscreen direction.
On 2012-01-07 22:23, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> On 2012-01-07 19:26, swerden wrote:
>
>> Hope this clears up most of your questions on this thread. Ask people
>> in the community why they are talking negative without having facts.
> We don’t have facts unless you take the effort to inform us
I would say more. If you are ditributing the openSUSE box, you should
announce the release here, IMHO. In the announce forum.
I would love to have the possibility of telling newcommers having
difficulties installing that they can buy the box and phone you. But… but
I don’t I like that if the box is not labeled clearly openSUSE.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
Sorry, guys. You should follow the links. They are pointing to openSUSE forums. What games are you doing here? I think most of you are not understanding why the naming was change. This was done in full compliance with the branding guidlines of openSUSE. If you want the box to named openSUSE this guidelines must be less strict as ather distributions are doing today. It’s not about Balsam Professional. I feel this discussion is to emotional and not handled by facts.
To say it in short. Only the images provided by the download server of openSUSE.org are allowed to be named openSUSE. Even for the biarch you need a special allowance. It’s not part of the branding guidelines. This means only the demo-DVD are fully compliant.
The artwork guidlines are really overstrickt. I’m pretty shure almost any copy or box that is named today has some more or less violations.
The questions is why this discussion is only focussed on open-slx? We are still the biggest contributor behind SUSE! So hitting on us is also seen by other potential contributors.
regards,
Stefan
This was done because of the new politics of SUSE. This was done in compliance. You should ask the questions to the board what kind of restrictions are made for people providing value added services. And you will find out that this is de facto not possible anymore. I’m not will to do any violations or unclearness with the box product. Sorry to say this, but the new politics forced that. So people who changed this in the last 12 month should give the answer.
We are in compliance and we will not violate any guideline that is leagal correct (btw. artwork is not!).
So, yes I’m sorry about that.
I don’t understand the comments here? We are explaining the product which is clearly based on openSUSE. So how would you explain it otherwise? So we are deleting almost everything which are in discussion, because SUSE employes are forcing this. So please asked them why they want to reduce the awareness of openSUSE-Technoloy especially in US. This guys are even misuse there legal department. And this is really far out of focus. So such behaviour really does not help making openSUSE a winner. Currently I haven’t even seen a 1.99$ offer for an openSUSE DVD in US.
So open-slx is clearly leagaly allowed to explain the product. Why SUSE and some board members are stressing these points should be answerde by them. Our US leagal is only loughing about this kindergarden games. And I really not funny about this kind of “community mesh up”.