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.
Doesn't SUSE actively benefit from openSUSE development? I thought Tumbleweed and SLES had a similar relationship as Fedora and RHEL.
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.
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.
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?
SUSE provide a lot of the infrastructure for openSUSE and base their enterprise Linux from factory.
The request was respectful and SUSEs support on OpenSUSE is very helping the project so I’d personally be fine with fulfilling that request
Honestly, for a good distro, the brand is not great. Perhaps this can be viewed good opportunity to go with something more unique!
Name it UnownOS. The other variants like MicroOS and Leap all have logos that look like Unowns.
I'm sure Nintendo wouldn't mind. Their lawyers are known to be pretty chill...
If the just called it other.
It would gain a huge boost in desktop usage figures.
Just change the name. It’s not a big deal. SUSE is a stupid name anyway.
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.
ChameleonOS seems to be already taken... Maybe ReptileOS?
