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
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    6310 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…

  • @narc0tic_bird@lemm.ee
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    3610 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
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      3610 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
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        1110 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.

  • @Mango@lemmy.world
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    3310 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.ca
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    10 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.

  • @sorrybookbroke@sh.itjust.works
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    2610 months ago

    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.

  • Brayd
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    2110 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

    • @woelkchen@lemmy.world
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      3210 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.