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.

  • moontorchy@lemmy.world
    821·
    5 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.social
      553·
      5 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.

      • AggressivelyPassive@feddit.de
        322·
        5 months ago

        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.

        • fr0g@piefed.socialEnglish
          192·
          5 months ago

          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

          • AggressivelyPassive@feddit.de
            51·
            5 months ago

            That is absolute nonsense. SUSE mostly serves large enterprise customers.

            And where do you think the people deciding what to buy get their information? Mind share is important.

            I’m pretty sure SUSE is bigger than Canonical.

            That’s actually surprising to me, but I’d argue that Suse offers more products, it seems like Rancher, Longhorn, etc. have no canonical equivalent.

          • panicnow@lemmy.world
            3·
            5 months ago

            I’m surprised and happy that SUSE is still doing well. I have fond memories of using SUSE in the enterprise especially around their “perfect guest” campaign for using it in virtualized environments. I thought they had very well-baked integration with large Windows networks—things just worked out of the box that didn’t with RHEL. I’m sure a lot has changed in the last decade but I appreciated their cooperative stance in the enterprise.

        • Ulu-Mulu-no-die@lemm.eeEnglish
          2·
          5 months ago

          OpenSuse is essentially free marketing for SUSE, nobody would know them otherwise

          I’ve been working for big enterprises for many years, SUSE is used in enterprise environment to run SAP systems because it’s recommended by SAP, OpenSuse has nothing to do with that.

  • narc0tic_bird@lemm.ee
    46·
    5 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
      41·
      5 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.

      • narc0tic_bird@lemm.ee
        12·
        5 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.

      • pmk@lemmy.sdf.org
        4·
        5 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?

    • visor841@lemmy.world
      61·
      5 months ago

      From my own looking into this it looks like more of a suggestion than a request (for now at least), just a “this might be a good idea, we should look into it”.

        • Petter1@lemm.ee
          3·
          5 months ago

          Yea, I only know suse from opensuse and of my company ever needs Linux support, I would go to suse because I know it from openSuse…

          And I would love to work for suse because I had such a good experience with openSuse

          I think a name change would be pretty dump…

          • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
            1·
            5 months ago

            this is how I feel. If I am involved in work decisions I will recommend the enterprise version because the support just makes sense and is incredibly cheap vs most software. It actually took me awhile to understand the whole fedora, centos, redhat connection.

      • ozymandias117@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        5 months ago

        It’s a strange suggestion after very recently working closely with openSUSE to ensure Leap can use the same binaries as SLE, though

  • Mango@lemmy.world
    431·
    5 months ago

    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:

  • floofloof@lemmy.caEnglish
    33·
    5 months ago

    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.

  • Brayd@discuss.tchncs.de
    26·
    5 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

  • Corgana@startrek.website
    211·
    5 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!

    • woelkchen@lemmy.world
      39·
      5 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.