OpenSUSE


openSUSE is a free and open-source Linux distribution developed by the openSUSE Project. It is offered in two main variations: Tumbleweed, an upstream rolling release distribution, and Leap, a stable release distribution which is sourced from SUSE Linux Enterprise.
The openSUSE project is sponsored by SUSE of Germany; the company released the first version as SUSE Linux in 1994. Its development was opened up to the community in 2005, which marked the creation of openSUSE. The focus of the developers is on creating a stable and user-friendly RPM-based operating system with a large target group for workstations and servers.
Additionally, the project creates a variety of related tools, such as Agama, Myrlyn, YaST, Open Build Service, openQA, Snapper, Portus, KIWI, and OSEM.

Product history

SUSE Linux

In the past, the SUSE Linux company has focused on releasing the SUSE Linux Personal and SUSE Linux Professional box sets which included extensive printed documentation that was available for sale in retail stores. The company's ability to sell an open-source product was largely due to the closed-source development process used. Although SUSE Linux had always been a free software product licensed with the GNU General Public License, it was only freely possible to retrieve the source code of the next release 2 months after it was ready for purchase. SUSE Linux' strategy was to create a technically superior Linux distribution with a large number of employed engineers, that would make users willing to pay for their distribution in retail stores.
SUSE Linux is of German origin, its name being an acronym of "Software und System-Entwicklung", and it was mainly developed in Europe. The first version appeared in early 1994, making SUSE one of the oldest existing commercial [|distributions]. It is known for its YaST configuration tool.

openSUSE

Since the acquisition by Novell in 2003 and with the advent of openSUSE, this has been reversed: starting with version 9.2, an unsupported one-DVD ISO image of SUSE Professional was made available for download. The FTP server continues to operate and has the advantage of "streamlined" installs, allowing the user to download only the packages the user feels they need. The ISO has the advantages of an easy install package, the ability to operate even if the user's network card does not work "out of the box", and less experience needed.
The initial stable release from the openSUSE Project, SUSE Linux 10.0, was available for download just before the retail release of SUSE Linux 10.0. In addition, Novell discontinued the Personal version, renaming the Professional version to simply "SUSE Linux," and repricing "SUSE Linux" to about the same as the old Personal version. In 2006, with version 10.2, the SUSE Linux distribution was officially renamed to openSUSE, as it is pronounced similarly to "open source". Until version 13.2, stable fixed releases with separate maintenance streams from SLE were the project's main offering. Since late 2015, openSUSE has been split into two main offerings, Leap, the more conservative fixed release Leap distribution based on SLE, and Tumbleweed, the rolling release distribution focused on integrating the latest stable packages from upstream projects.
Over the years, SUSE Linux has gone from a status of a distribution with restrictive, delayed publications and a closed development model to a free distribution model with immediate and free availability for all and transparent and open development.
On 27 April 2011, Attachmate completed its acquisition of Novell. Attachmate split Novell into two autonomous business units, Novell and SUSE. Attachmate made no changes to the relationship between SUSE and the openSUSE project. After the 2014 merger of the Attachmate Group with Micro Focus, SUSE reaffirmed its commitment to openSUSE.
EQT AB announced their intent to acquire SUSE on 2 July 2018. There were no expected changes in the relationship between SUSE and openSUSE. This acquisition was the third acquisition of SUSE Linux since the founding of the openSUSE Project and closed on 15 March 2019.

The openSUSE Project

The openSUSE Project is a community project to create, promote, improve, and document the openSUSE Linux distribution.
The openSUSE Project community, sponsored by SUSE and others, develops and maintains various distributions based on Linux.
Beyond the distributions and tools, the openSUSE Project provides a web portal for community involvement. The community develops openSUSE collaboratively with its corporate sponsors through the Open Build Service, openQA, writing documentation, designing artwork, fostering discussions on open mailing lists and in Internet Relay Chat channels, and improving the openSUSE site through its wiki interface.
The openSUSE Project develops free software and tools and has two main Linux distributions named openSUSE Leap and openSUSE Tumbleweed. The project has several distributions for specific purposes like MicroOS, which is an immutable operating system that hosts container workloads, and the Kubernetes certified distribution Kubic, which is a multi-purpose standalone and Kubernetes container operating system based on openSUSE MicroOS. The project is sponsored by a number of companies and individuals, most notably SUSE, AMD, B1 Systems, Heinlein Support, and TUXEDO Computers.
The first indication that there should be a community-based Linux distribution called OpenSuSE goes back to a mail of 3 August 2005, in which at the same time the launch of the website opensuse.org was announced. This page was available a few days later. One day later the launch of the community project was officially announced.
According to its own understanding, openSUSE is a community that propagates the use of Linux and free software wherever possible. Besides a Linux-based distribution, it develops tools like the Open Build Service and YaST. Collaboration is open to everyone.

Activities

The openSUSE Project develops the openSUSE Linux distribution as well as a large number of tools around building Linux distributions like the Open Build Service, KIWI, YaST, openQA, Snapper, Portus, and more. The project annually hosts free software events. The community's conference is held at a location in Europe and a summit is held at a location in Asia.

Organization

The project is controlled by its community and relies on the contributions of individuals, working as testers, writers, translators, usability experts, artists, and developers. The project embraces a wide variety of technology, people with different levels of expertise, speaking different languages, and having different cultural backgrounds.
There is an openSUSE Board which is responsible to lead the overall project. The openSUSE Board provides guidance and supports existing governance structures but does not direct or control development, since community mechanisms exist to accomplish the goals of the project. The board documents decisions and policies.
The project is self-organized without a legal structure, although the establishment of a foundation has been under consideration for some time.
SUSE as the main sponsor exerts some influence, but the project is legally independent of SUSE. openSUSE is a "do-ocracy" in which those who do the work also decide what happens. This primarily the case with desktop and application development, as the sources of the base packages have been coming from SLE since the switch to the Leap development model. To further unify the base, the 'Closing-the-Leap-Gap' project has been started, where openSUSE Leap 15.3 will be completely based on SLE's binary packages.

Organizational units

There are three main organizational units:
  • openSUSE Board: the board consists of 5 members elected for 2 years at a time, plus the chairman, who is provided by SUSE. The Board serves as a central point of contact, helps with conflict resolutions and communicates community interests to SUSE. As of February 2025, the Board has the following members:
  • * Dr. Gerald Pfeifer, Chair
  • * Ish Sookun
  • * Jeff Mahoney
  • * Rachel Schrader
  • * Shawn W Dunn
  • * Simon Lees
  • Election Officials: The Election Committee manages and supervises the elections to the openSUSE Board. It consists of three or more volunteers.
  • Membership-Officials: The Membership-Officials are appointed by the Board if interested. The Membership-Officials decide on the admission of contributors to the group of openSUSE members upon request. A member receives, among other things, an @opensuse.org address. Only members may vote in the election to the Board.

    SUSE Company history

Current distributions

openSUSE Tumbleweed

Tumbleweed is the flagship of the openSUSE Project. Instead of classical version numbers and periodic updates, a rolling release system is used: updates happen continuously; previous states of the operating system are saved as "snapshots". Tumbleweed is preferred by openSUSE users as a desktop system.
In the old development model, with each new openSUSE release, a new rolling release was set-up, which always received new packages. When the new release was at the doorstep, and Tumbleweed was reset to that release, most packages were newer than the ones in the release, which led to problems.
With the switch to Leap, the development model was changed completely: according to the Factory First policy all software packages had to be sent to Factory in the first place before they could be included in a distribution. Out of Factory a daily snapshot is taken and tested in . A successful test is released as the next Tumbleweed snapshot. Unlike other rolling release distributions, Tumbleweed is a tested rolling release, which increases stability dramatically.
Technically Tumbleweed is the basis for MicroOS and Kubic.