SUSE addresses fears of openSUSE community which rose with Micro Focus merger

The Attachmate Group, which acquired Novell and SUSE a few year ago has agreed to merge with UK based Micro Focus. With this announcement SUSE, the Germany based Linux company has, for the third time, seen a new owner. SUSE was bought by Novell in 2003 and then Novell was acquired by The Attachmate Group 2011.

While these changes didn’t affect the operations of openSUSE, the popular GNU/Linux-based distribution which is sponsored by SUSE, it did raise questions about the future and stability of the project as the owners changed.

The question re-surfaced again with the merger of Attachmate and Micro Focus. To address any such concerns SUSE’s President and General Manager, Nils Brauckmann contacted the openSUSE Board and openSUSE chairman Richard Brown shared SUSE’s key points on this development:

* Business as Usual: There are no changes planned for the SUSE business structure and leadership. There is no need for any action by the openSUSE Project as a result of this announcement.

* Commitment to Open Source: SUSE remains passionately committed to innovation through Open Source. This has always been the foundation of our business and that will continue as we grow and innovate in new areas.

* Commitment to openSUSE: SUSE is also fully committed to being a sponsor and supporter of an open, highly independent and dynamic openSUSE community and project. We are proud of openSUSE and greatly value the collaborative relationship between SUSE and the openSUSE community. [emphasis added by TheMukt]

The combination of the Attachmate Group and Micro Focus creates a larger, global enterprise software entity, operating at a greater global scale. This provides an even stronger foundation for the continued investment in SUSE and our continued innovation through Open Source.”

Richard says, “The Board is enthusiastic about the benefits of the merger may bring to SUSE and ultimately also to our openSUSE Project.”

openSUSE is one of the most important Open Source projects as they are also the lead contributors to many top projects so an assurance from SUSE will keep the moral of openSUSE developers high.