OpenSUSE/SUSE: Governance Options, Proprietary Software and SUSECON

The relationship between SUSE and the openSUSE community is currently under discussion as the community considers different options for how it wants to be organized and governed in the future. Among the options under consideration is the possibility of openSUSE setting up an entirely independent foundation, as it seeks greater autonomy and control over its own future and operations.

The concerns that have led to the discussions have been ongoing for several months and were highlighted in an openSUSE board meeting held on April 2 and in a followup meeting on April 16. The issue is also set to be a primary topic of discussion at the board meeting to be held during the upcoming openSUSE conference 2019. SUSE itself has been in a state of transition, recently spinning out from MicroFocus to become an independent company with the backing of private equity from EQT. Both openSUSE board chair Richard Brown and SUSE leadership have publicly reiterated that SUSE remains committed to openSUSE. The concerns however have to do with the ability of openSUSE to be able to operate in a sustainable way without being entirely beholden to SUSE.

While attending Oracle OpenWorld late last year, I was able to hear firsthand from Oracle Product Management about the new features in Oracle Database 19c. At that time, this release was in beta. Thanks to combined efforts from Oracle and SUSE engineering, I am pleased to report that Oracle Database 19c is certified on SLES (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server) 12. This brings a wide range of enhancements covering application development, availability, big data / data warehousing, diagnostics capabilities, performance, RAC (Real Application Clusters) / Grid, and security to Oracle customers using SLES.

Now that SUSECON 2019 has wrapped up, I wanted to share all the information and articles related to SUSE Cloud Application Platform in one place. SUSECON was a really interesting conference, obviously focused on SUSE products and services, but also attended by partners, press, analysts, and customers. It was great to have so many substantive conversations with them. Many SUSE employees work remotely or are distributed at various offices around the world, so it was also great to meet so many colleagues in person for the first time.

The big news from SUSECON, from my biased point of view, was the announcement of SUSE Cloud Application Platform 1.4, the first Cloud Foundry software distribution to include Project Eirini and enable native Kubernetes container scheduling as an option, in addition to adding support for Google Kubernetes Engine and several other useful features and updates.