At SUSE We Make Choice Happen

For over 25 years, open source has revolutionized our world. From the growth of Linux to virtualization, to the move to the cloud, and more – many, if not most major advances in technology have had open source innovation as a driving force. For me, it’s obvious why. You want to have as many minds as possible working to find solutions – under a framework where those developments are then given back, so everyone benefits. When problems are found, many eyes make all bugs shallow. At the heart of it all is a view that software should be able to be “freely accessed, used, changed, and shared (in modified or unmodified form) by anyone” and that restricting customers from sharing the source they are given by their vendor limits their ability to collaboratively (as users) analyze and audit the final software they depend on. 

SUSE stands behind this view 100 percent. Becoming more proprietary should not be the basis for competition between open source companies. We have all contributed to the open source community – just as in the same way we have all benefited from it. It’s something bigger than the sum of our parts.   

At SUSE, we actively collaborate with the open source community to build enterprise grade products from open source projects. Our customers do not pay for the software, but for the ability to run it in a business-critical environment with long term 24/7 support, security, a certified stack and for being represented in the open source community. This is where we compete to be the best, most reliable and cost-effective vendor for our customers. 

With the latest restrictions to source code availability, we believe that the competitive landscape is shifting in the wrong direction.  

A key priority is to continue to provide choice for customers. SUSE announced today we will build, support and contribute a hard fork of the RHEL codebase to the community. This is what we excel at, and it will give long-term compatibility and choice for customers.  

The best way to explain this is by the following comparison: 

If you are a mobile phone user, you want the ability to switch telco provider while keeping your number, to maximize the value you are consuming. 

Equally, as an Enterprise Linux user, you can switch to SUSE while keeping your existing Linux. At SUSE, we are experts at providing enterprise value to users of open source software in a highly competitive way without compromising what is important to customers. 

SUSE is uniquely placed to do this. We have over 30 years of engineering expertise contributing to Linux and ensuring it is ready for mission-critical workloads. Our team is highly experienced in supporting mixed environments. Last year, we successfully introduced SUSE Liberty Linux for our customers who need CentOS and RHEL support. Furthermore, SUSE Manager has long been renowned for its ability to efficiently manage a wide range of Linux distributions, showcasing our dedication to empowering users with flexibility and choice. SUSE is steadfast in its commitment to share this work. We will ensure others have free and open access to the source code and that the project will never be restricted.   

One more point I want to add. It goes without saying that SUSE remains fully committed to SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE) and Adaptable Linux Platform (ALP) solutions as well as the openSUSE Linux distributions. We want to ensure that enterprises and communities remain empowered to innovate freely across mixed environments. 

If you are as excited as we are about making choice happen, then join us.  Get in touch with us: Choice@SUSE.com

Choice Happens! 

DP