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> Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen, CEO of SUSE, said, According to LinkedIn Dirk-Peter started at Suse 3 months ago as CEO and worked for Red Hat for 18 years and was a

> Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen, CEO of SUSE, said, According to LinkedIn Dirk-Peter started at Suse 3 months ago as CEO and worked for Red Hat for 18 years and was a Senior VP at Red Hat. I think this move of Suse could be a credible threat to IBM / Red Hat's RHEL.

nicce 3y ago
Well. Now it sounds quite serious.
kijin 3y ago
Either that, or it could be the beginning of a very long and pointless lawsuit.
- jacooper 3y ago
  For what?
  - tyingq 3y ago
    RHEL is designed to make forks difficult to do without infringing on trademarks.
    - PlutoIsAPlanet 3y ago
      The community has a large amount of experience with debranding RHEL. CentOS did it for decades. If there is a left over of Red Hat branding, you'd have a hard time proving any kind of purposeful infringement.
      - tyingq 3y ago
        I believe the idea is that RedHat will likely be more thorough with a commercial entity than they were with CentOS. Yes, I'm sure it's technically possible, but also possible they will get into some back-and-forth with RedHat.
        secureleaf 3y ago
        I wouldn’t be so certain. Oracle has been doing this for years with Oracle Linux.
      - kriberg 3y ago
        Redhat debranded RHEL for CentOS. It was one of the things CentOS compalined about, so RedHat made it easier for them. Maybe it saved RedHat money overall by avoiding trademark protection (IANAL).
    - Conan_Kudo 3y ago
      Actually, quite the opposite. Going all the way upstream to Fedora, the trademarks are designed to be easy to change out. Going from Fedora to CentOS Stream shows one brand swap over. And if you have RHEL, you can easily compare the package sets between CentOS Stream and RHEL to see which packages are swapped for branding. Both Red Hat and SUSE distributions make it easy because internally both companies need to do the trademark swap in their own engineering pipelines.
      - tyingq 3y ago
        The Rocky Linux folks pointing out some of the things that make it hard: https://rockylinux.org/news/keeping-open-source-open/ https://rockylinux.org/news/keeping-open-source-open/
        Conan_Kudo 3y ago
        Rocky Linux is trying to specifically recreate RHEL exactly. That adds a new set of challenges that most people shouldn't care about. If you want to create a derivative of any Fedora/CentOS distribution, that's not hard. But if you're trying to recreate, that's a different story. You have to care about things like build sequencing, NVRs, etc. For example, if I'm creating Kudo Linux as a RHEL-compatible distribution by deriving from CentOS Stream, I only need to swap the branding packages and call it a day. The rest of my engineering effort can be spent in Fedora or CentOS Stream as appropriate. But if I'm creating Kudo Linux as a distribution that re-creates RHEL, then I need all the source packages to build, figure out build orders, and swap out branding. I also have to do my own lifecycling and validation. I am also now responsible for the maintenance of all the software and ensuring people get updates. One is easy. The other isn't.
        ghaff 3y ago
        And in fact you probably won't create a perfect reproduction given you don't have access to the very complex RHEL build system. (CentOS didn't either.) Which makes some of the angst over just using CentOS Stream because it's not a downstream rebuild a bit misplaced.
    - Spooky23 3y ago
      Better let Oracle know!
      - chasil 3y ago
        An interesting thing about Oracle Linux... $ ssh me@myol7.myplace.com cat /etc/oracle-release /etc/redhat-release Oracle Linux Server release 7.9 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 7.9 (Maipo) $ ssh me@myol8.myplace.com cat /etc/oracle-release /etc/redhat-release Oracle Linux Server release 8.8 Red Hat Enterprise Linux release 8.8 (Ootpa) $ ssh me@myol9.myplace.com cat /etc/oracle-release /etc/redhat-release Oracle Linux Server release 9.2 Red Hat Enterprise Linux release 9.2 (Plow) I guess Oracle doesn't remove all the branding. I don't remember how CentOS handled this.
        cjm42 3y ago
        redhat-release is a symlink to /etc/centos-release: $ cat /etc/redhat-release CentOS Linux release 7.5.1804 (Core)
        pak9rabid 3y ago
        My understanding is /etc/redhat-release needs to be there because some (dumb) blob drivers specifically check that file to see if you're running a compatible RHEL system before it'll even attempt to install.
        rincebrain 3y ago
        At a previous job, we had a wrapper script that swapped the file out before attempting to launch Dell software installers/firmware updaters, because they sometimes checked for hardcoded exact strings like that in there, and errored out, and whether or not it did that varied back and forth over the years.
    - donkeyd 3y ago
      I guess the guy with 18 years of experience there might be well suited for the job then!
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - kijin 3y ago
    Doesn't matter. IBM/Red Hat has deep pockets, they can drag competitors into meritless lawsuits for as long as they want just for the sake of deterrence. Having hired a former VP who probably knows a trade secret or two sounds like a good enough excuse to cry wolf.
    - skissane 3y ago
      > IBM/Red Hat has deep pockets, they can drag competitors into meritless lawsuits for as long as they want just for the sake of deterrence If IBM sues SUSE, Oracle might try to intervene, on the grounds that a ruling against SUSE could negatively impact them as well. I'm not sure if IBM vs Oracle is a lawsuit either would want to have. Both have very deep pockets, and substantial corporate experience with litigation. So, that factor may help protect SUSE
      - kijin 3y ago
        I really hope that you are right. Never thought there would come a day when I must root for Oracle to help defend open source, but here we are.
        LeFantome 3y ago
        Oracle will never second Open Source, I assure you. They will defend themselves. Occasionally that may benefit you accidentally. If so, I would not bet on it continuing.
    - LeFantome 3y ago
      What lawsuits? Over what?
pelasaco 3y ago
or he is just trying to get some moment to sell his second Linux company, get some $$$, and stay there in Switzerland..
bonzini 3y ago
They're admitting that the Linux that enterprise people want is RHEL (or RHEL-based) and not SLES. Also, if CIQ follows them and SUSE bases this on CentOS Stream (at least for RHEL9; CentOS Stream 8 is admittedly a bit messy), this is exactly what Red Hat was hoping to achieve.
- tw04 3y ago
  The US market is primarily RHEL. Historically the EU market and SAP shops were SLES. I admit I’m far enough removed today that I’m not sure if that still holds true.
  - SSLy 3y ago
    My feeling is that most engineers outside of Germany prefer RHEL to SLES.
    - Pet_Ant 3y ago
      So as a daily desktop user, how different are they in a professional environment?
      - type0 3y ago
        Depends on what you mean. Advanced GUI is much better on SUSE though https://yast.opensuse.org/ https://yast.opensuse.org/
    - themerone 3y ago
      My feeling is most engineers prefer Debian. It's managers that tend to prefer corporate solutions.
      - aeyes 3y ago
        As an engineer I don't care. In my career I have worked on SunOS, SLES, Debian, Ubuntu, RHEL, CentOS, Alpine and probably more. I prefer something that is kept reasonably up to date so that I don't have to fight ancient long-fixed issues or missing features. But I really don't care, if it pays the bills I'll use it.
teleforce 3y ago
It seems this Dirk-Peter guy is a long time Red Hat guy and he probably knows Red Hat Linux inside out. This can be 2nd most important Linux distro announcement for the good of the community by a company after Canonical's announcement of Ubuntu back in 2004, but time will tell if this going to take-off by spinning a new generic enterprise Linux distro based on RHEL. Interestingly the last Red Hat for community (most popular at the time) is Red Hat 9 before it gone fully enterprise by launching Fedora back in 2004. Coincidentally Ubuntu was launched around the same time (now most popular Linux distro). Probably the last Red Hat Enterprise is RHEL 9 as we know it.

nicce 3y ago

Well. Now it sounds quite serious.

kijin 3y ago

Either that, or it could be the beginning of a very long and pointless lawsuit.

jacooper 3y ago
For what?
- tyingq 3y ago
  RHEL is designed to make forks difficult to do without infringing on trademarks.
  - PlutoIsAPlanet 3y ago
    The community has a large amount of experience with debranding RHEL. CentOS did it for decades. If there is a left over of Red Hat branding, you'd have a hard time proving any kind of purposeful infringement.
    - tyingq 3y ago
      I believe the idea is that RedHat will likely be more thorough with a commercial entity than they were with CentOS. Yes, I'm sure it's technically possible, but also possible they will get into some back-and-forth with RedHat.
      - secureleaf 3y ago
        I wouldn’t be so certain. Oracle has been doing this for years with Oracle Linux.
    - kriberg 3y ago
      Redhat debranded RHEL for CentOS. It was one of the things CentOS compalined about, so RedHat made it easier for them. Maybe it saved RedHat money overall by avoiding trademark protection (IANAL).
  - Conan_Kudo 3y ago
    Actually, quite the opposite. Going all the way upstream to Fedora, the trademarks are designed to be easy to change out. Going from Fedora to CentOS Stream shows one brand swap over. And if you have RHEL, you can easily compare the package sets between CentOS Stream and RHEL to see which packages are swapped for branding. Both Red Hat and SUSE distributions make it easy because internally both companies need to do the trademark swap in their own engineering pipelines.
    - tyingq 3y ago
      The Rocky Linux folks pointing out some of the things that make it hard: https://rockylinux.org/news/keeping-open-source-open/ https://rockylinux.org/news/keeping-open-source-open/
      - Conan_Kudo 3y ago
        Rocky Linux is trying to specifically recreate RHEL exactly. That adds a new set of challenges that most people shouldn't care about. If you want to create a derivative of any Fedora/CentOS distribution, that's not hard. But if you're trying to recreate, that's a different story. You have to care about things like build sequencing, NVRs, etc. For example, if I'm creating Kudo Linux as a RHEL-compatible distribution by deriving from CentOS Stream, I only need to swap the branding packages and call it a day. The rest of my engineering effort can be spent in Fedora or CentOS Stream as appropriate. But if I'm creating Kudo Linux as a distribution that re-creates RHEL, then I need all the source packages to build, figure out build orders, and swap out branding. I also have to do my own lifecycling and validation. I am also now responsible for the maintenance of all the software and ensuring people get updates. One is easy. The other isn't.
        ghaff 3y ago
        And in fact you probably won't create a perfect reproduction given you don't have access to the very complex RHEL build system. (CentOS didn't either.) Which makes some of the angst over just using CentOS Stream because it's not a downstream rebuild a bit misplaced.
  - Spooky23 3y ago
    Better let Oracle know!
    - chasil 3y ago
      An interesting thing about Oracle Linux... $ ssh me@myol7.myplace.com cat /etc/oracle-release /etc/redhat-release Oracle Linux Server release 7.9 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 7.9 (Maipo) $ ssh me@myol8.myplace.com cat /etc/oracle-release /etc/redhat-release Oracle Linux Server release 8.8 Red Hat Enterprise Linux release 8.8 (Ootpa) $ ssh me@myol9.myplace.com cat /etc/oracle-release /etc/redhat-release Oracle Linux Server release 9.2 Red Hat Enterprise Linux release 9.2 (Plow) I guess Oracle doesn't remove all the branding. I don't remember how CentOS handled this.
      - cjm42 3y ago
        redhat-release is a symlink to /etc/centos-release: $ cat /etc/redhat-release CentOS Linux release 7.5.1804 (Core)
      - pak9rabid 3y ago
        My understanding is /etc/redhat-release needs to be there because some (dumb) blob drivers specifically check that file to see if you're running a compatible RHEL system before it'll even attempt to install.
        rincebrain 3y ago
        At a previous job, we had a wrapper script that swapped the file out before attempting to launch Dell software installers/firmware updaters, because they sometimes checked for hardcoded exact strings like that in there, and errored out, and whether or not it did that varied back and forth over the years.
  - donkeyd 3y ago
    I guess the guy with 18 years of experience there might be well suited for the job then!
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- kijin 3y ago
  Doesn't matter. IBM/Red Hat has deep pockets, they can drag competitors into meritless lawsuits for as long as they want just for the sake of deterrence. Having hired a former VP who probably knows a trade secret or two sounds like a good enough excuse to cry wolf.
  - skissane 3y ago
    > IBM/Red Hat has deep pockets, they can drag competitors into meritless lawsuits for as long as they want just for the sake of deterrence If IBM sues SUSE, Oracle might try to intervene, on the grounds that a ruling against SUSE could negatively impact them as well. I'm not sure if IBM vs Oracle is a lawsuit either would want to have. Both have very deep pockets, and substantial corporate experience with litigation. So, that factor may help protect SUSE
    - kijin 3y ago
      I really hope that you are right. Never thought there would come a day when I must root for Oracle to help defend open source, but here we are.
      - LeFantome 3y ago
        Oracle will never second Open Source, I assure you. They will defend themselves. Occasionally that may benefit you accidentally. If so, I would not bet on it continuing.
  - LeFantome 3y ago
    What lawsuits? Over what?

pelasaco 3y ago

or he is just trying to get some moment to sell his second Linux company, get some $$$, and stay there in Switzerland..

bonzini 3y ago

They're admitting that the Linux that enterprise people want is RHEL (or RHEL-based) and not SLES. Also, if CIQ follows them and SUSE bases this on CentOS Stream (at least for RHEL9; CentOS Stream 8 is admittedly a bit messy), this is exactly what Red Hat was hoping to achieve.

tw04 3y ago
The US market is primarily RHEL. Historically the EU market and SAP shops were SLES. I admit I’m far enough removed today that I’m not sure if that still holds true.
- SSLy 3y ago
  My feeling is that most engineers outside of Germany prefer RHEL to SLES.
  - Pet_Ant 3y ago
    So as a daily desktop user, how different are they in a professional environment?
    - type0 3y ago
      Depends on what you mean. Advanced GUI is much better on SUSE though https://yast.opensuse.org/ https://yast.opensuse.org/
  - themerone 3y ago
    My feeling is most engineers prefer Debian. It's managers that tend to prefer corporate solutions.
    - aeyes 3y ago
      As an engineer I don't care. In my career I have worked on SunOS, SLES, Debian, Ubuntu, RHEL, CentOS, Alpine and probably more. I prefer something that is kept reasonably up to date so that I don't have to fight ancient long-fixed issues or missing features. But I really don't care, if it pays the bills I'll use it.

teleforce 3y ago

It seems this Dirk-Peter guy is a long time Red Hat guy and he probably knows Red Hat Linux inside out. This can be 2nd most important Linux distro announcement for the good of the community by a company after Canonical's announcement of Ubuntu back in 2004, but time will tell if this going to take-off by spinning a new generic enterprise Linux distro based on RHEL. Interestingly the last Red Hat for community (most popular at the time) is Red Hat 9 before it gone fully enterprise by launching Fedora back in 2004. Coincidentally Ubuntu was launched around the same time (now most popular Linux distro). Probably the last Red Hat Enterprise is RHEL 9 as we know it.