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Opinion By Kurt Pfeifle

Why has Novell management decided to discontinue their entire SUSE Linux branded desktop and workstation product line? Are they heading for economic suicide now?

These valid questions must be asked after yesterday's proceedings of an on site meeting at the SUSE headquarters in Nuremberg, Germany. During the meeting, Novell management informed 200 employees about current business plans for the company.

Recent announcements and reshuffles in the company leadership already indicated impending cuts of staff. Some sources have guesstimated the number being as high as 20% of the Novell workforce; overall, the company announced that its worldwide cuts would be 600 staffers, which equates to a 10% figure.

Novell's leadership has repeatedly and publicly stated their deep commitment to Linux in the past 12 months over. They even put substance onto their claims: they open-sourced (and put under the GPL) YaST, Hula, Evolution, and more; their recent founding of the openSUSE project is heading towards complete success; SUSE Linux 10.0 is receiving incredibly good reviews--not least because of the particular "SUSE polish" that is applied by its engineers to the rock-solid KDE core of its desktop.

After this week's layoff announcements, most professional IT journalists and analysts concluded Novell would concentrate the impending cuts mostly on the side of their traditional, money-losing business departments. I did so too.

Contrary to what was expected from recent Novell announcements, Novell executives are apparently slicing deeply into the Linux heart of the company. Jobs and resources are actually being slashed in several areas previously dubbed by Novell management as "key component parts of Novell's Linux developments": staffers working on Mono, Hula, Evolution and Desktop Strategy are getting the sack.

SUSE customers around the world will be shocked and puzzled by this management decision. If they feel like I do, they'll liken the recent Novell moves to the ones we witnessed at Sun Microsystems--a management team that doesn't know what direction they want to head and changes course every other week.

I grew into, and became familiar with, the Linux world as a SUSE user. SUSE was my "first love" in the open source family. I found it to be the most easy to learn and easy to use Linux distribution of its time--and it was a very complete one too. I recommended SUSE to many friends, colleagues, and even some members of my family. I had never had cause to regret this--though I was tempted a few times to look over the fence and test drive other distros. SUSE remained my favorite desktop distro all the time: being the most polished and the most complete offering for my personal desktop, SUSE was my first choice for servers too.

It appears these feelings are shared by more users. After all, SUSE Linux won all their awards in the past years because it served as a first and pleasant introduction into the Linux and Open Source world to many hundreds of thousands of users around the world. They encountered Linux first in the shape of SUSE--and, loving it, very often they tended to stay loyal for many years to their initial Linux distro.

This loyalty is being destroyed now. Novell seems to heading for a subscription-based, server-only product line--much like Red Hat is already doing.

If this is the case: what will be the remaining differentiating items to make me choose SUSE over Red Hat? Why should I use the bad copy, when I have the same thing as an original?

As a consequence of their layoffs, Novell is also laying off one KDE core developer employed by SUSE. But other areas will suffer even more. The entire Evolution development team (mostly based in India) seems to be dissolved, with only one maintainer left to keep the product breathing (after all, there are existing Novell customers); Hula development is said to be cut completely; Mono development is also seriously affected; what the future holds for the NLD product remains to be seen.

The GUI requirements needed to satisfy a non-command line interface for the remaining Novell server product line will apparently be GNOME only.

I feel sorry for SUSE. It was a great distro for Desktop usage. Even the best, in my personal opinion. Axing and killing it is a setback for all its users. Figures that I learned to know indicate that amongst all openSUSE/SUSE 10.0 users there is an 85% preference of KDE for their choice of desktop environment.

Being a KDE contributor and a KDE user since version 1.2 I also feel this is a certainly a setback for everyone working towards Linux desktop adoption. But it definitely is not the end of Linux desktop adoption. And it surely will not derail KDE from its path of development.

The KDE project at large has a flat and bazaar-like structure. It is based on a very broad and vibrant user community around the globe; undoubtedly, it will be able to deal with this setback very efficiently.

KDE in the past steered a course of independence. While working with commercial corporations as partners, the project has always guarded and fostered their close links to their user community as their major source of life. KDE has never allowed itself to become dependent on a single or a few large companies.

The developer being laid off has already stated that he keeps contributing to KDE. KDE's imminent 3.5 release is not affected at all; development for 4.0 continues full speed; KDE-specific support for exciting new technologies is in the pipeline (see, for example, the upcoming EXA extension for the X11 window system); and porting of important KDE applications such as the groupware client Kontact and the music player amaroK to the Windows platform are gaining momentum.

KDE's acceptance in the broad market continues to grow--as is also demonstrated by the fact that some of its core technologies have been adopted as key components in new commercial products by Apple, Google, and Nokia.

Given that there soon may not be a SUSE desktop distribution any more, looks like I need to switch distro: to Kubuntu, maybe?

Related Stories:
Novell Responds to Pfeifle Opinion Article(Nov 05, 2005)
Boston Business Journal: Novell to Lay Off 600 as it Trims 10% of Force(Nov 03, 2005)
BusinessWeek: How to Save Your Neck in a Four Easy Steps(Nov 02, 2005)
The Boston Globe: Novell Trips Over its Linux Strategy(Nov 01, 2005)
InfoWorld: Memo to Microsoft : Buy Novell or JBoss, or Both(Oct 30, 2005)

Index Mode   |   Flat Mode   |   Thread Mode   |   Thread Flat     Talkback(s) Name  and Date   It's a shame    Mike R. Nov 4, 2005, 18:03:08     Desktop Linux Proliferating, But It's FEDORA    lord vader Nov 4, 2005, 18:21:51     i was affraid of this..    pete Nov 4, 2005, 18:27:19     ibm and SUSE killed SUSE    vm Nov 4, 2005, 18:35:59     Bye, Novell    PJ Nov 4, 2005, 18:36:00     And yes, I agree about emulating RH    vm Nov 4, 2005, 18:42:06     Re: It's a shame    Daniel McCarthy Nov 4, 2005, 18:42:58     SuSE Linux    FossMann Nov 4, 2005, 18:51:21     suse and the desktop    joel Nov 4, 2005, 18:58:19     re: Desktop Linux Proliferating    Brandioch Conner Nov 4, 2005, 19:05:42     Never Liked Novell    Macfield Nov 4, 2005, 19:14:19     SUSE Linux - dead or alive?    N. Horbach Nov 4, 2005, 19:23:27     Does not suprise me    Eric Brown Nov 4, 2005, 19:25:00     Re: ibm and SUSE killed SUSE    Brian L. Simonin Nov 4, 2005, 19:35:36     Debian-steady as she goes    BD Nov 4, 2005, 19:38:30     Who to layoff at Novell    Rich Curley Nov 4, 2005, 19:41:18     Not Going Anywhere    Long Time SuSE User Nov 4, 2005, 19:44:45     Don't loose faith.    Mike Harvey Nov 4, 2005, 19:46:50     What does mean to OpenSuse?    Mark Nov 4, 2005, 19:52:22     This article is incorrect.    Jeremy Allison Nov 4, 2005, 20:02:02     SUSE/Novell just committed suicide    GreyGeek Nov 4, 2005, 20:02:24     Re: Desktop Linux Proliferating, But It's FEDO    John H Terpstra Nov 4, 2005, 20:06:53     Say it isn't so...    BC Nov 4, 2005, 20:11:28     Misleading report    Marcus Meissner Nov 4, 2005, 20:20:45     Ok    GH Nov 4, 2005, 20:38:00     Not all bad    Uno Engborg Nov 4, 2005, 20:51:51     Desktop Linux in Organizations    wolf Nov 4, 2005, 20:53:26     Re: This article is incorrect. - JRA    vm Nov 4, 2005, 21:02:07     Re: Misleading report    Mike R. Nov 4, 2005, 21:19:06     Re: Re: Desktop Linux Proliferating, But It's    phil Nov 4, 2005, 21:36:22     Re: Misleading report    ex-old-suse Nov 4, 2005, 21:39:38     Open Source alternatives    Eric Nov 4, 2005, 21:53:24     How many profitable Linux companies    Bagwatti Nov 4, 2005, 22:00:33     Talk about jumping the gun    RM Nov 4, 2005, 22:27:08     including making false statements about licensing&    fudfixer Nov 4, 2005, 22:52:43     Confused?    renox Nov 4, 2005, 23:00:04     When will Linux be on the desktop...    Joe User Nov 4, 2005, 23:23:41     Plain old FUD    Pascal Bleser Nov 4, 2005, 23:46:04     Re: Re: Misleading report    Pascal Bleser Nov 4, 2005, 23:58:57     It's sad they let writers spread lies like thi    Jeff Schroeder Nov 5, 2005, 00:14:41     Re: including making false statements about licens    David Nov 5, 2005, 00:44:47     This is FUD, move ahead    vruz Nov 5, 2005, 00:48:41     Lies and more lies    Rice Nov 5, 2005, 00:48:54     First - death of Word Perfect - now - death of SuS    Roger Nov 5, 2005, 00:53:09     Re: It's sad they let writers spread lies like    nodesktopwars Nov 5, 2005, 00:53:14     The Quality of LinuxToday.com    John Nov 5, 2005, 00:59:31     Good news or just publicity ?    Fairlane Nov 5, 2005, 01:11:32     SUSE LINUX IS NOT GOING ANYWHERE!!    Troels Just Nov 5, 2005, 01:36:03     So what exactly is incorrect, Jeremy?    ac Nov 5, 2005, 04:16:20     Sad, linuxtoday is losing the plot.    bilbo Nov 5, 2005, 05:40:23     Stupid trollkid talking FUD...    th Nov 5, 2005, 07:09:35     So what was    hEiDe Nov 5, 2005, 09:10:03     Novell is always getting it wrong    Martin Konold Nov 5, 2005, 12:02:30     European layoffs    Albert Nov 5, 2005, 12:25:52     This is not KDE Gnome! This is Server Desktop!    ex-suse-employee Nov 5, 2005, 16:06:41     Re: This is FUD, move ahead    David Nov 5, 2005, 16:14:39     Re: Novell is always getting it wrong    David Nov 5, 2005, 16:58:24     What is incorrect.    Jeremy Allison Nov 5, 2005, 17:27:06     Novell ruins a wonderful company!    andre Nov 5, 2005, 18:02:03     thanks, corporate world    redapollo Nov 5, 2005, 18:54:16     not true    Xero°Kelvin Nov 5, 2005, 19:44:06     SuSE Will not fall.....    Monkey 9 Nov 5, 2005, 19:53:57     Re: Never Liked Novell    Arius Nov 5, 2005, 20:12:28     Re: Novell is always getting it wrong    ac Nov 5, 2005, 22:24:01     Lovely SUSE Linux 10.0    lxuser Nov 5, 2005, 23:38:55     Re: thanks, corporate world    Ken Jennings Nov 6, 2005, 00:03:08     That's VERY good!    Anonymous Nov 6, 2005, 03:14:13     Not SuSE but KDE got killed    Robert M. Stockmann Nov 6, 2005, 03:53:21     Robert M. Stockmann    Amazed Nov 6, 2005, 05:57:38     KDE should now consider windows as a core platform    Thorsten Schneider Nov 6, 2005, 09:31:03     worthless article -- no facts    sander van vugt Nov 6, 2005, 12:13:01     Re: worthless article -- no facts    ex-suse-employee Nov 6, 2005, 13:58:41     Spammers/Crackers using your site    FossMann Nov 6, 2005, 14:29:16     getting rid of SuSE    Roger L Harford Nov 6, 2005, 15:42:31     re: What is incorrect.    Jeremy Allison Nov 6, 2005, 16:33:21     Re: So what exactly is incorrect, Jeremy?    Jeremy Akers Nov 6, 2005, 18:47:41     Micro'Novell'soft    Billy Lightfoot Nov 7, 2005, 00:27:49     Re: Re: So what exactly is incorrect, Jeremy?    Jeremy Allison Nov 7, 2005, 04:13:41     thats very pity, but ...    Tim Stone Nov 7, 2005, 08:27:18     Lies and misinformation    F Yu Nov 7, 2005, 09:03:22     This isn't good journalism    Warren Brown Nov 7, 2005, 18:07:11     Idiot journalism    Bruce Wayne Nov 7, 2005, 18:34:19     Re: Robert M. Stockmann    vm Nov 7, 2005, 20:02:55     Re: This isn't good journalism    vm Nov 7, 2005, 20:14:50     Novell should notice this number..    Eric Brown Nov 8, 2005, 15:57:44     For NOW he may be wrong ...    Benjamin Quest Nov 8, 2005, 18:39:37     Re: For NOW he may be wrong ...    vm Nov 8, 2005, 21:56:14     SuSE and KDE    Gordon Jeffrey Nov 11, 2005, 13:26:42     It was to be expected    paai Nov 11, 2005, 15:24:58     GNOME is broken    ac Nov 12, 2005, 03:39:03     Home | Search Talkbacks | Customize View    Top of Page   Enter your comments below: * Your Name: * Your Email Address: * Subject: CC: [will also send this talkback to an E-Mail address] * Comments: Tags allowed:<I>,<B> and <U>. See our talkback-policy for more about talkback content. Fields marked with * are required!