Live data from Hacker News

SUSE to go private

suse.com

201–210 of 245 posts

Re: SUSE to go private

#201
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open Build System and OpenQA, for automated building and testing of packages. This is what gets updates to their rolling release Tumbleweed faster than Arch, but with no instability ever. I can't emphasize enough how rock solid Tumbleweed is. OBS also doubles as their own AUR equivalent - you can make your own repo and do your own builds and install from the command line, or browse and install what other people have…

> faster than Arch that's a thing I haven't heard in a long time

This isn't borne out by the numbers, for the average package. Not for openSUSE or for Fedora. The only full Linux distros I currently see with a higher percentage of up-to-date packages than Arch are KaOS, CRUX, Slackware and NixOS: https://repology.org/repositories/statistics/pnewest

Of course, whether or not the most important packages to you hit each distro first could be a totally different story.

Overall, openSUSE Tumbleweed is very up-to-date, though: ~76% by this measure— right up there with Fedora Rawhide and Gentoo.

Re: SUSE to go private

#202
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you go with Leap or Tumbleweed?

I choose Tumbleweed. Reason being that I do gaming and often you need the latest package of something to be able to. Although, I do not have any experience with Leap so maybe it is good as well? I do back up my own files, so there is not much danger in it for me. For a very stable distro experience at work, I use debian (stable). But it lags a few years behind, so is no good for games.

Leap is not good for gaming, especially if you want cutting edge versions of software and tools. For some software, there just isnt a leap repo.

Re: SUSE to go private

#203
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ran SUSE around the same time (2001-2002ish), because it was the only major distro (between RH and Mandrake, primarily) that would install on my archaic 128MB PII. Debian worked but my grade school brain had no capacity for setting up Xfree86 manually. I stuck to SUSE for about 1.5 years before switching to Mandrake (and, eventually, Fedora Core) on my new Athlon XP desktop. My nostalgia for them will probably alwa…

Sounds like we pretty much had the same Linux story! I started with SuSE 7 (purchased it!), then Mandrake, then Fedora, then Ubuntu, then Arch and now reluctantly back on Xubuntu because I can't get my laptop to sleep properly on Arch... Do you remember why you switched from SuSE? I only have vague memories but I feel like the package manager might have been a bit clunky? Maybe I should give openSUSE another go, I re…

Lol YAST is still clunky. Very functional but also clunky and slow.

Re: SUSE to go private

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private companies funded by public funds is my jam. So, most of the tech megacorps in the US. Oh, the glory of fasc...ehem, capitalism.

> Private companies funded by public funds is my jam. So, most of the tech megacorps in the US I think you're getting a bit confused by the terms public and private. Most US tech megacorps are public companies e.g. publicly traded private enterprises. They're public companies because they're traded on the stock market, not because they receive "public funds" aka funding from the government; that's not what a company…

"You should probably pump the brakes on adopting any sort of ideology before you get a firm grasp on basic terminology."

Oh, I know basic terminology.

Faschism - when big private enterptise is in service to the government and having lucrative, beneficial and unfair deals with the government or it's agencies.

Most of big tech and MIC companies in the USA have beneficiary status (multi-billion deals, tax-exemption, etc..) with the government or at least one of the alphabet soup agencies. In other words, US government learned much from the Nazies.

Re: SUSE to go private

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None. Private equity's entire business model is to suck the quality and staffing out of the product and make money off the gap between the product getting cheaper and people moving to a viable alternative.

That's been my experience twice now personally, and having read numerous other accounts. They'll always tell you after purchase that's not the case, how they see long term value, want to grow it, etc etc. It's never true - if PE buys your company, run for the hills.

They already bought SUSE years ago though and their previous owners weren't much better (or possibly objectively worse..)

Re: SUSE to go private

#206
post #46

What are the success stories of private equity firms taking over a corporation? (Where success is the products are still made, quality and staffing is maintained at previous levels)

Safeway seems to be run pretty well, after being taken private by PE in the 80s. Warren Buffet runs Berkshire Hathaway which is acts as a PE firm. Here's a list of everything they own and have owned for decades: https://finmasters.com/berkshire-hathaway-subsidiaries/#cons... There are plenty of other examples. PE is just "ownership not through the public stock markets" which is like...the default, actually.

Berkshire Hathaway is a public company and IIRC Buffet only owns about 15% of it. So it really that different from a large corporation with many subsidiaries which also runs an actively managed investment fund at the same time?

Re: SUSE to go private

#207
post #68

I am cautiously optimistic. From the article: > Both SUSE’s Management and Supervisory Boards have expressed support for the strategic opportunity presented by this delisting. They believe that it will enable SUSE to concentrate on its operational priorities and the execution of its long-term strategy without the pressure of public markets. Lets hope their incentives more strongly align with their customers, now. I a…

Don't know that I've ever been optimistic about a company being purchased by private equity. Anyone have counterexamples where that turned out well for customers? The justification sounds good, but they'd say something like that even if the plan was "squeeze money out of the company at the expense of users and customers and reputation."

I have no idea. However are their examples of companies that went public where it turned out well/better for customers?

I can't name a single example.

Re: SUSE to go private

#208
post #67

Start of the end, private equity ruins everything it touches. RIP SUSE

Did you miss the last time exactly the same company bought SUSE back in 2018 (for double its current market cap)?

EQT IPO'ed SUSE by selling a minority stake at the peak back in 2021 for €30, now they're buying it back for a little over a half of that.

I guess they feel it's undervalued and might have another got at it when/if small-mid tech company valuations recover..

Re: SUSE to go private

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RKE is Apache licensed, I think it has a long future.

The license matters little if SuSE is the one footing the bill for developing it.

When a product is great but a company turn bad usually most of the good DEV flee. I think it is quite frequent that former developers start a new company or join a company that has the same of developing that product or a fork of it.
Post reply on HN