I worked there for a few years during the Novell/Attachmate management. They had a strong bias towards the kernel teams and engineers. They had an european work culture and some very good leads. Their Engineers were very good. The internal mailing lists were ripe with technical discussions. Got some amazing friends and inspirational engineers with whom I would love to work again.
However, There were infighting between the GNOME and KDE desktop teams. The VPs were mostly overpaid and practically useless. The constant churn of acquisition, looking for a new buyer, etc. did not help their long term cause.
With the older system software (kernels, compilers, etc) and infra layer getting commoditized I wonder how long they may remain relevant. When they brought in a new CEO and acquired Rancher I hoped that they may recover with K8S etc, but the CEO has quit and the acquisition has not done much it seems. Until they remove some dinosaurs from the old management at VP levels, I honestly do not see any recovery for them. Thumbs up for the Engineering (and leads) and heavy thumbs down for the Management, is how I remember my time there.
> However, There were infighting between the GNOME and KDE desktop teams
I like to imagine an alternate world where KDE won, became the de facto standard Linux desktop environment, and was refined to perfection (along with a huge set of desktop apps with a consistent user interface design).
> and heavy thumbs down for the Management, is how I remember my time there.
This is exactly what is reflected to the public with their flappy and sloppy unpredictability of product lines (openSUSE that is).
LEAP is beta/rc for Enterprise -> LEAP is now based ON Enterprise -> LEAP will be canned for NEW thing just Tumbleweed for community in the future -> Nothing about new thing but new LEAP are still published -> Community still wants something like LEAP, creates Slow-roll Tumbleweed in fear of SUSE still canning LEAP...maybe? -> Now, no news about EOL of LEAP, no "new thing", but Slow-Roll for Tumbleweed...what a Clown-show...
SUSE/openSUSE you are terrible in messaging, like chickens on meth with a new brain-fart every two month.
Nothing against the Dev's but the C-suite and Marketing should probably be replaced, those ping-pong announcements is the opposite from what someone wants from a Distro.
Really openSUSE why should anyone use LEAP for a professional project if there is a really big chance that in 3-4 years a complete re-installation/migration is needed? Or is it not? I don't know, also pretty sure you don't know too. So fck it i use Debian/Ubuntu/FreeBSD or Slackware hell even Oracle-Linux, literary anything else is more predictable longterm.
You guys have no technical problems but a trust and communication one.
However, There were infighting between the GNOME and KDE desktop teams. The VPs were mostly overpaid and practically useless. The constant churn of acquisition, looking for a new buyer, etc. did not help their long term cause.
With the older system software (kernels, compilers, etc) and infra layer getting commoditized I wonder how long they may remain relevant. When they brought in a new CEO and acquired Rancher I hoped that they may recover with K8S etc, but the CEO has quit and the acquisition has not done much it seems. Until they remove some dinosaurs from the old management at VP levels, I honestly do not see any recovery for them. Thumbs up for the Engineering (and leads) and heavy thumbs down for the Management, is how I remember my time there.