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Story: Suse cofounder leaves NovellTotal Replies: 18
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cjcox

Nov 09, 2005
1:36 PM EDT
Quoting:"I have been the maintainer of the Suse kernel for more than a decade now," Mantel wrote. "I'm very confident the Novell management will find a competent successor very quickly. After all, there are lots of extremely skilled people over there in the Ximian division."


Well said. I'm going to have review my position in NOVL.

My opinion of the Ximian folks. Steeped in Gnome (and therefore Red Hat) from the days when enlightenment was chosen as the Gnome window manager (and later abandoned)... they can only generate more interest in Red Hat. IMHO, these folks are Linux folks... not Unix folks. And it shows. That's not a slam at Linux. Just stating the facts. If you're a Linux user, your experience cannot be all that old. The Ximian folks are young and quite capable of repeating every mistake that Unix has made over the years.

Gnome has never impressed me technically. Their claims at having an interface standard only means that KDE can do things that Gnome cannot do. I could rant all day... I can live with Gnome, but I might as well work on some of the other window managers... you can probably make any one of them look better than Gnome. If you like olwm or CDE, then Gnome looks very nice. And as long as control in SUSE remains the Ximian crew (basically pretty much what happened to all hopes of a Linux desktop after the Novell acquisition).... KDE is out and Gnome is in.

Strangely, Novell actually has the resource potential to come up with something even better than KDE.

But they've decided to take the easy low risk route. Just play catch up to Red Hat.... which is sad, since SUSE is actually way beyond Red Hat in many, many areas. However, if you believe the other team you're playing against is stronger than you, you will be defeated.

I may have to cash out my position in NOVL simply based on principle. Even if they strike it rich... I'm not sure I want to be a part of their "success" anymore. In fact, Red Hat at least has kept their convictions over the years. That's a more honorable investment (though it is highly, highly, highly, highly.. almost more than any pre-dot-bomb... overvalued company).
tadelste

Nov 10, 2005
11:24 AM EDT
CJ: You're showing you scrupples again.
tuxchick

Nov 10, 2005
1:03 PM EDT
I don't see a moral issue here, cjcox. Just an investor's decision based on figuring if Novell will succeed or not. To me it looks like the company with the best networking products in the world can't figure out how to attract customers. Is it a marketing failure? Is the free-as-in-freeloader ethic too strong? Maybe they simply aren't taking enough PHBs to hooter bars, I dunno. I know that for me, as someone who is familiar with their product line, their message is confusing. They have way too many products, and they don't seem to have the ability to succinctly describe what each one is for. Too much marketingmushspeak.

I can't stand Gnome. Nautilus is buggy poo. "Interface standard" my aunt Fanny, there's no standard, it's just a constipated memory of its former self. With every iteration they remove functionality and make it more difficult to customize. They don't have to take away features, fer crying out loud, just re-organize the menus. Or, to use popular geek buzzwords "decouple the configuration interface from the feature set." Put commonly-used stuff front and center. Put other stuff deeper in the menu structure. But don't take away functionality!

Gnome 1.4 was the last great Gnome; very configurable, stable, and anyone who wanted to try their hand at hacking it could find a lot of help. It was fun and useful. Ximian has a lot of kewl stuff, like Red Carpet. Since 1.4 they got on some weird drugs or something, 'cause it's been straight downhill.

Anyway, Novell needs to differentiate itself, instead of appearing to be a Red Hat groupie. They are very different. I doubt very much that decision-makers are going "OMG WTF I must have Gnome!!"

tadelste

Nov 10, 2005
2:31 PM EDT
Now that you mention it. ILG.
Tsela

Nov 11, 2005
12:34 AM EDT
tuxchick: funny, I prefer GNOME myself. KDE has great applications (K3B and Kile are my favourites), but the desktop itself irks me. It's bloated, and I find it unintuitive. I like a desktop not to get in my way, and for that GNOME is great. I don't care about eye-candy, and GNOME starts in ten seconds on my box, while KDE takes nearly one minute (both are customised to a similar level of eye candy - although I don't like flashy things, I have a weakness for the Noia icon set ;) -, and I found GNOME easier to cutomise than KDE, by the way).

Just a YMMV post :) .
cjcox

Nov 11, 2005
8:10 AM EDT
If you like Gnome go with those who know Gnome best.

That's not SUSE folks.

I really don't see how this is going to help SUSE in any way (unless they are wanting to establish a follower position... which can be a business plan).
tadelste

Nov 11, 2005
8:13 AM EDT
Well, we put SUSE 10 on my wife's computer with Gnome and it is vastly improved over previous gnome implementations from SUSE.
dinotrac

Nov 11, 2005
8:15 AM EDT
Guys...

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the Ximian folks had more than passing familiarity with GNOME.

For that matter...Miguel's whole Mono push was to find a better programming paradigm for GNOME, wasn't it?
tuxchick

Nov 11, 2005
8:42 AM EDT
Tsela, you may like Gnome. It won't damage my opinion of you. Much.

:)
tadelste

Nov 11, 2005
8:51 AM EDT
Well, this is mute. SUSE/Novell reversed itself.
tuxchick

Nov 11, 2005
8:59 AM EDT
I vote we do away with "untitled" threads. They are obnoxious. Pick a subject, dangit.
dinotrac

Nov 11, 2005
9:30 AM EDT
Tom --

So help us all out a bit here, Tom...

Is it speechless or is it moot?

;0)
Tsela

Nov 11, 2005
10:37 AM EDT
tuxchick: LOL, just like I won't let your preference for KDE taint my opinion of you. I'm a pretty forgiving guy after all :) .

Anyway, to be honest I'm more of an enlightenment guy. I'm quite excited about E17 :) . I'm using GNOME right now because I want to wait for E17 to become stable. I waited 2 years for Debian Sarge to arrive, I can wait for enlightenment ;) (I'm not so found of E16...).
dinotrac

Nov 11, 2005
10:44 AM EDT
tsela -

Quoting:I'm more of an enlightenment guy


So long as you don't expect us to march in Locke-step with you...
Tsela

Nov 11, 2005
10:47 AM EDT
Dino: care to explain to this European guy? ;)
dinotrac

Nov 11, 2005
11:09 AM EDT
Tsela ---

Hmmmm....As in John Locke, English Enlightenment thinker?
jimf

Nov 11, 2005
11:24 AM EDT
Tsela.

You can take your statement to Tuxchick about liking Gnome, switch the names KDE & Gnome, and have exactly how I feel about the desktop... including load speed. I also have no interest in enlightenment. Now, I only say this to demonstrate that most of the desktop GUI debate is personal preference. Not that preference isn't important, but, all of these desktops will do the job... more or less.

In a Commercial Distro like Red Hat or SuSe it is essential to use a consistent approach and chose one desktop. That means that some people are not going to be happy with it whatever the choice. I think that a strong case can be made for a KDE desktop in SuSe, but in a business context, there needs to be a choice, one or the other, something SuSe and Novell are quite aware of.

Thank god I'm not faced with that dilemma in Debian. I can run my KDE with my Gnome apps and whatever other eccentricities that I prefer. The advantages of working for one's self :)
cjcox

Nov 11, 2005
1:56 PM EDT
You can run Gnome apps in SUSE. You can run KDE apps in Gnome on SUSE.

Plain and simple. Novell is switching to Gnome because of perceived FUD over Qt corporate perception and the fact that Red Hat uses it.
jimf

Nov 11, 2005
2:12 PM EDT
cjcox,

You 'can' run KDE in Red Hat too, but, most company's using the Distro discourage that. Using multiple interface's is a pain for training and maintenance in a Corporate environment.

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