this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2024
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 85 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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...

[–] [email protected] 59 points 4 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 4 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (9 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 81 points 4 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 79 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 77 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I'd love them to replace SUSE with SUS. Distrowatch click rate +500%

[–] [email protected] 24 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago
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[–] [email protected] 65 points 4 months ago (5 children)

Just rename it jeSUSE, because nobody fucks with the jeSUSE.

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 4 months ago

Rename it to openSUS

[–] [email protected] 46 points 4 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 45 points 4 months ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 46 points 4 months ago (8 children)

New name suggestion:

"The Distro Formerly Known As openSUSE"

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 4 months ago (7 children)

wow. I had a good opinion of suse up to this point. what a silly request after all these years.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Corporate backing is a two-edged sword, unfortunately.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 4 months ago (2 children)

TIL SUSE exists and wouldn't have found out if not for OpenSUSE and this news. It's kinda weird to open their website and see this:

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 months ago (2 children)

SUSE is such a stupid name. Like, it is stupid to say in German.

Just rename it SUSGeckoOS

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 months ago (5 children)

If GeckOS isn't already taken, it could be kinda cool.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago

I don't know what's stupid to say about Gesellschaft für Software und Systementwicklung mit beschränkter Haftung

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 4 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 33 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

That must be annoying just after OpenSUSE went through a branding redesign process. I guess they'll have to give up the gecko logo since SUSE also uses it?

And there's more at stake than a rebranding it seems. This could signal SUSE withdrawing development support from OpenSUSE:

Let’s face it: SUSE has been more than just a namesake for openSUSE; it has actively provided resources and support far beyond what it would ordinarily need for its business operations.

This generosity has fostered a thriving openSUSE project that has excelled under SUSE’s goodwill and informal support, including contributions made by SUSE employees on company time.

However, the recent request for a branding separation has overshadowed this partnership. If openSUSE does not handle this request with the sensitivity and cooperation it demands, the project risks not just a reduction in support from SUSE but a potential shift in priorities away from it.

The “Factory first” policy, a cornerstone of the engineering synergy between SUSE and openSUSE, could also be scrutinized, emphasizing the gravity of the current situation.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago (1 children)

This could signal SUSE withdrawing development support from OpenSUSE

i had a similar thought; feels like the centos/redhat episode we had a couple years ago.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 4 months ago (2 children)

This is a massive miss-play on Suse's part. Essentially all the good will, and recognition I have for Suse is based on OpenSuse. It's the reason many of the places I've worked at now run a Suse product instead of redhat. Seriously, when I think of OpenSuse and Suse as a whole I barely differentiate the toonunlike redhat and fedora. That's likely the reason for the switch but I cannot see how-this does anything but benefit them.

From the article too there are some concerns. Suse is, admittedly, trying to cause opensuse to change direction ans managment to further suit it's buisness at threat of removing support. This is sad to see.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 4 months ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 28 points 4 months ago

The request was respectful and SUSEs support on OpenSUSE is very helping the project so I’d personally be fine with fulfilling that request

[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 months ago

Honestly, for a good distro, the brand is not great. Perhaps this can be viewed good opportunity to go with something more unique!

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago
[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago

Lizard Linux
Lizard Linux
Lizard Linux

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 40 points 4 months ago

This is absurd

Years ago, when there were talks about establishing an independent foundation, sane people already warned that relying on a trademark not owned by them is risky. That was batted away as a non-issue. Now here we are.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago

Since I had to deal with some representatives of SUSE corp, I can say that the whole experience was just plain horrible. Don‘t like that company at all and thus am not surprised that the name change topic is even discussed at all.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago
[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago (1 children)

They should name it something original like Green Lantern

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Just change the name. It’s not a big deal. SUSE is a stupid name anyway.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 4 months ago

I think it's one of those things that will become a bigger deal indirectly because of all the knock-on effects. Like the branding, they'll have to have the logos all redesigned, the domain name will have to change, it'll mess up a lot of troubleshooting when people google the old name etc.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Seems a pointless endeavour. The open and enterprise sides are so deeply linked, it makes sense that they share a brand.

Separating them only weakens the broader SUSE ecosystem.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago (8 children)
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[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago

Finally

ClosedSUSE

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (5 children)

Off the top of my head...

  • Gecko or GeckOS
  • LizOS
  • ReptilOS
  • ChamelOS
  • KomodOS
[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago

Gecko (is already an openSUSE spin)

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