[falcolas]

> it is a little bit annoying that people always ignore that we still exist

Count me among them. I wasn't even aware that the SUSE Linux project was still a thing, let alone one backed by a business.

Marketing might not be a terrible idea at this point in time - the best product in the world won't sell if nobody knows about it.

[beatgammit]

It's very popular in Europe, RedHat is very popular in the US.

I think the IBM acquisition is a fantastic opportunity for SUSE to start their engines here in the US. They have a fantastic value proposition: start with openSUSE Leap for free, then upgrade to a paid SUSE contract (can be done on place). This should appeal to CentOS and Fedora users who consider using RHEL, but don't because it's too hard to switch. They can also appeal to people who don't need the IBM integration but feel like they're not getting as much attention as before (priorities will likely change at RedHat). They can also appeal to developers with their rolling Tumbleweed release (which can also convert to openSUSE Leap/SUSE).

If SUSE had publicly traded stocks, I'd consider buying in right now as they have a really good opportunity over the next few years to steal customers from RedHat/IBM. They're big Linux contributors (Greg Kroah-Hartman used to work on the project), so they are _very_ attractive.

[eloisant]

In France, I've never worked for or even heard about a company that uses Suse. It's usually Debian if the sysadmin have all latitude, RedHat if certifications or having a company behind the product mattered for the managers.

[mprev]

At this point SUSE is just as niche in Europe as it is anywhere else.

In an enterprise setting, why would you throw your lot in with a company that seems to change owners every few years rather than the biggest name in open source that also now happens to be owned by IBM?

[forapurpose]

> This should appeal to CentOS and Fedora users who consider using RHEL, but don't because it's too hard to switch.

It's hard to switch from Fedora and CentOS to RHEL? Isn't CentOS almost exactly the same bits, minus the branding and a few proprietary pieces?

[type0]

It's not something that RH says you could so there you go. You can't just pull one system out and put a new one, specially Fedora, this would be equivalent of pulling a rug from underneath someone standing on it, who knows you might be lucky, just try it.

SUSE on the other hand encourages switching after the introduction of LEAP 15, in other words it's supposed to be trivial to do.