Ubuntuvs. openSUSE: Comparison of Different company control styles

Ubuntu and OpenSUSE develop their Linux distributions in different ways. What do you think is better? A considerable number of Linux developers have received funding from companies interested in improving Linux, which is no secret (here I am referring to any part of a complete Linux system ). However, many companies have different funding methods. Let's take a look at two typical examples: Ubuntu and openSUSE. Both are Linux distributions. Both of them are massive.

Ubuntu and OpenSUSE develop their Linux distributions in different ways. What do you think is better?

A considerable number of Linux developers have received funding from companies interested in improving Linux, which is no secret (here I am referring to any part of a complete Linux system ). However, many companies have different funding methods.

Let's take a look at two typical examples: Ubuntu and openSUSE.

Both are Linux distributions. Both are large, long-term, and extremely successful projects, and they all have a large community that includes volunteers and paying staff. However, the difference between the two is quite obvious and important.

For Ubuntu, the main direction of development is determined by Canonical team and its leader Mark Shuttleworth. When talking about how Canonical is really "at the helm" of Ubuntu, we will soon think of two examples, such as Unity (Ubuntu's own user interface) and Mir (Ubuntu's own display service ). In many cases, parent companies set targets, projects, and priorities without negotiation. For example, the Ubuntu Unity user interface is required for the wide range of strategic goals of Canonical. Some community members like it, while others hate it. However, in any case, Unity has become the Default User Interface of Ubuntu.

But is this a bad thing? I'm not sure whether it is good or bad. This is just a question about how the project gets along with the company.

In contrast, openSUSE also has a company controller. Okay, that is, SUSE. The key difference is that SUSE provides a commercial release in the form of "SUSE Linux Enterprise Edition. Although openSUSE (Community Linux release) and SUSE Linux release (commercial release) have many technical overlaps... but professionally, they are different.

This means that SUSE, as a company, can adopt more ways to deal with openSUSE. Their interest is to find key technologies to be improved (such as Btrfs file systems ), detect and package software packages in Community releases that they want to include in commercial releases, but the separation of Community releases and commercial releases is compared to Canonical, they are provided with greater flexibility. In this regard, it is different from Canonical.

This method is very similar to Redhat's way of treating Fedora. It has become a success for a company to sell enterprise-level Linux systems based on community Linux distributions.

But frankly speaking, I have seen both advantages and disadvantages. In terms of organization and management (the public part), they all face their own difficulties. In fact, these two methods have more similarities than their differences.

I would like to hear from you. Are you a single leader in your community-based Linux distributions? Or do you prefer that most of the decisions made by Linux distributions are community-driven? Should companies have strong control over Linux releases, or should they boldly let the community decide? Please leave a comment to let us know your opinion.

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For more information about Ubuntu, see Ubuntu special page http://www.linuxidc.com/topicnews.aspx? Tid = 2

For more information about SUSE, see SUSE topic page http://www.linuxidc.com/topicnews.aspx? Tid = 3