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Melissa Di Donato Appointed CEO of SUSE

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Re: Melissa Di Donato Appointed CEO of SUSE

#11

Post by ggm »

I came late to linux in heavy use, being a BSD person of old. Commercialized BSD exists but the foundation(s) behind the major flavours are clearly NFP models.

So as a late linux adopter, in Debian, I am wondering why people see value in SUSE and RedHat since all my experience has been the SLA value is .. dreck. No problem we had with a RH kernel or OS behaviour was fixed inside our $SLA$ in the EL release we had. All problems were either WONTFIX or re-install later EL.

Debian update/upgrade appears to work. Fixes get applied. What am I missing? If they want to own SAP-ON-LINUX or ORACLE-ON-LINUX why should I worry?

I am more concerned about GPL and ZFS these days, than commercial backing: I dont think it actually adds value to me. (20+ nodes in a research cluster, cloud)

Re: Melissa Di Donato Appointed CEO of SUSE

#12

Post by drfuchs »

There's a lot of misunderstanding here about what "Independent Company" means. In the business world, it's understood as "not having shares that are traded on the stock market". So, SUSE is "independent" since it has never IPO'd; while RedHat isn't "independent" as you and I can buy shares in it.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_business for confirmation: "An independent business is a business that is free from outside control. It usually means a privately owned establishment, as opposed to a public limited company, the latter of which is owned by investment shares traded in the stock market."

Re: Melissa Di Donato Appointed CEO of SUSE

#13

Post by [deleted] »

buster wrote: post #4
craigsmansion wrote: post #2

From the end of the press release: ``About SUSE SUSE, the world’s largest independent open source company'' "Wait, isn't RedHat the lar... oooh, someone at SuSE marketing is on the ball."

It's right in the beginning of the press release and i find this marketing BS so unbearable that i didn't read any further. It's the typical BS i come to expect from venture capital owned companies (i've heard that all the time when i was working for one). And how is Suse "independent" when it's owned by some swedish private equity group? See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EQT_Partners And, interestingly, see the germ…

[deleted]

Re: Melissa Di Donato Appointed CEO of SUSE

#14

Post by alxlaz »

ggm wrote: post #11

I came late to linux in heavy use, being a BSD person of old. Commercialized BSD exists but the foundation(s) behind the major flavours are clearly NFP models. So as a late linux adopter, in Debian, I am wondering why people see value in SUSE and RedHat since all my experience has been the SLA value is .. dreck. No problem we had with a RH kernel or OS behaviour was fixed inside our $SLA$ in the EL release we had. Al…

I can't comment on the value of SLAs, as I was never directly involved (but what I heard is pretty much what you mention). What I can tell you, however, is that there are companies where higher-ups won't agree to an IT proposal if it doesn't include commercial support, whether useful or not. Company policy mandates it so it gets done.

Re: Melissa Di Donato Appointed CEO of SUSE

#15

Post by ggm »

alxlaz wrote: post #14
ggm wrote: post #11

I came late to linux in heavy use, being a BSD person of old. Commercialized BSD exists but the foundation(s) behind the major flavours are clearly NFP models. So as a late linux adopter, in Debian, I am wondering why people see value in SUSE and RedHat since all my experience has been the SLA value is .. dreck. No problem we had with a RH kernel or OS behaviour was fixed inside our $SLA$ in the EL release we had. Al…

I can't comment on the value of SLAs, as I was never directly involved (but what I heard is pretty much what you mention). What I can tell you, however, is that there are companies where higher-ups won't agree to an IT proposal if it doesn't include commercial support, whether useful or not. Company policy mandates it so it gets done.

Yea. Probably thats how we wound up there. We bought off risk, by spending money that it turned out didn't resolve the risk when it hit, but because we TRIED we got to shift blame, by not owning "you broke it you fix it" to the management view.

Re: Melissa Di Donato Appointed CEO of SUSE

#16

Post by mitchty »

ggm wrote: post #15
alxlaz wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't comment on the value of SLAs, as I was never directly involved (but what I heard is pretty much what you mention). What I can tell you, however, is that there are companies where higher-ups won't agree to an IT proposal if it doesn't include commercial support, whether useful or not. Company policy mandates it so it gets done.

Yea. Probably thats how we wound up there. We bought off risk, by spending money that it turned out didn't resolve the risk when it hit, but because we TRIED we got to shift blame, by not owning "you broke it you fix it" to the management view.

I know people that work at SuSE, in a nutshell, they are like Redhat in that they don't really provide linux only, they provide ways of integrating it into your business.

That is where Debian just isn't going to compete. And that is why SuSE exists, they're selling much more than linux.

Re: Melissa Di Donato Appointed CEO of SUSE

#17

Post by raxxorrax »

ggm wrote: post #11

I came late to linux in heavy use, being a BSD person of old. Commercialized BSD exists but the foundation(s) behind the major flavours are clearly NFP models. So as a late linux adopter, in Debian, I am wondering why people see value in SUSE and RedHat since all my experience has been the SLA value is .. dreck. No problem we had with a RH kernel or OS behaviour was fixed inside our $SLA$ in the EL release we had. Al…

Couldn't give you an answer to that. I think it is curious that many developers go the debian route, while a lot of network administrators use centOS.

Maybe network administrators value the option to switch to a system where SLAs are more common?

I think SUSE is just used by people who always used it. I doubt they have as much pull to newcomers as other distros. Personally I never did like yast. I don't know if that is still in use to be honest.

Re: Melissa Di Donato Appointed CEO of SUSE

#18

Post by ggm »

mitchty wrote: post #16
ggm wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea. Probably thats how we wound up there. We bought off risk, by spending money that it turned out didn't resolve the risk when it hit, but because we TRIED we got to shift blame, by not owning "you broke it you fix it" to the management view.

I know people that work at SuSE, in a nutshell, they are like Redhat in that they don't really provide linux only, they provide ways of integrating it into your business. That is where Debian just isn't going to compete. And that is why SuSE exists, they're selling much more than linux.

That integration can be super-useful. If you "get" SAP or "get" salesforce or whatever, having a vendor who can talk vertically integrated helps.

But right now, I think we're all staring at alpine in kubernetes asking if the old giant unix model is the one we want.

Re: Melissa Di Donato Appointed CEO of SUSE

#20

Post by adolfojp »

ggm wrote: post #11

I came late to linux in heavy use, being a BSD person of old. Commercialized BSD exists but the foundation(s) behind the major flavours are clearly NFP models. So as a late linux adopter, in Debian, I am wondering why people see value in SUSE and RedHat since all my experience has been the SLA value is .. dreck. No problem we had with a RH kernel or OS behaviour was fixed inside our $SLA$ in the EL release we had. Al…

A lot of it has to do with standardization and training. If you go with Red Hat, for example, you get a bunch of certifications and training materials and standardized tools like Satellite and so on and so forth. It's easier to find solutions and peace of mind when you get some guidance from a vendor. It's similar to managing a network with Windows technologies. Many of the choices are already made for you.

If you go with Debian you have to spend more time building your own stack which is fine if you're experienced and you know what you're doing or if you're the lone IT guy. But if you build a stack for a team then you have to make sure that your employees and new hires know not only the specific stack that you built but also how to find support for each of the individual components.

If you go with a heterogeneous environment that consists of several distributions like a mix of Red Hat, Debian, Ubuntu, Arch, etc., then you'll be tempted to jump out of a window.

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