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Novell Story Site Launched 75

Posted by CowboyNeal from the personal-testimonials dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Novell launched a Linux/Open Source story page where everyone can briefly describe how he/she helps pushing Linux or Open Source forward. For every submission a marker is set on a world map. You can also win prices, among them, although yet not mentioned on the page, 50 SLED 10 licenses."
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Novell Story Site Launched More

Novell Story Site Launched

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  • Useful (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26, 2006 @12:54PM (#15985210)
    You can also win prices

    Just what I need, more prices.

  • Other prizes. (prices?) (Score:3, Informative)

    by Whiney Mac Fanboy ( 963289 ) * <whineymacfanboy@gmail.com> on Saturday August 26, 2006 @12:57PM (#15985217) Homepage Journal
    Errr - thanks for mentioning the SLED licenses, but the other prizes (that people would actually want) are:

    Prize/Odds of Winning: There are 20 tier 3 prizes to be awarded, 6 tier 2 prizes, and 3 tier 1 prizes. Tier 3 prizes are Apple® 2GB Nano iPods . They have an approximate value of US $199. Tier 2 prizes are Olympus® EVOLT E-500 Digital Cameras. They have an approximate value of of $800 US. Tier 1 prizes are HP Compaq nc6400 Notebooks . They have an approximate value of $2,000 US. The odds of winning a prize depend upon the total number of eligible entries received. All prizes will be awarded, provided they are properly claimed and a sufficient number of eligible entries are received. Limit one prize per household.
    • Do the HP Compaq nc6400 come pre-installed with Windows XP?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Korin43 ( 881732 )
      Seems odd that they'd give out iPods out for something related to Linux. I was under the impression they didn't play well together..
      • Seems odd that they'd give out iPods out for something related to Linux. I was under the impression they didn't play well together.

        Your impression was incorrect. Linux plays very nicely with ipods (nicer than itunes even) - its just itunes music store and the crud downloaded from there that can be problematic.
    • Whiney Mac Fanboy? Either you beat yourself up a lot, or your parents are nuts! (If you're not in America, oops...)

  • Viral (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 ) on Saturday August 26, 2006 @01:01PM (#15985235) Homepage
    For those who aren't clear on what this is from the blurb, this is a viral marketing campaign. However it is important to note that these sorts of things can be used as a tool by us. If you want to promote this, then by all means write your story, possibly win a prize etc. Not all marketing is bad, especially if you're interested in furthering the wellbeing of a certain company or product or movement (such as open source).

    And of course the way a viral campaign really spreads is if you tell people. So if you feel this is important to promote and you want it to get more press, then write about it on your blogs.

    No, I don't work for Novell, but I am involved in advertising and viral advertising in particular and I'm hoping that by explaining how we can harness this, people won't just jump down their throats and start bitching out all advertising in general, and slashvertising etc.

    • It is only "bad" when it is based upon lies of FUD.

      This attempt at "viral marketing" is stupid because your chance of winning anything DECREASES as it spreads.

      Not to mention that they really need different levels of participants. If Linus enters his story, but all the prizes go to people who "evangelize" Linux .... yeah, that's dumb.
      • "It is only "bad" when it is based upon lies of FUD."

        Which is not the case this time.

        "This attempt at "viral marketing" is stupid because your chance of winning anything DECREASES as it spreads."

        Isn't that the way most contests work?

        " Not to mention that they really need different levels of participants. If Linus enters his story, but all the prizes go to people who "evangelize" Linux .... yeah, that's dumb."

        The whole point of the contest is for people to say good things about Linux. That's what is be

  • From the article (Score:3, Informative)

    by Denial93 ( 773403 ) on Saturday August 26, 2006 @01:01PM (#15985240)
    > The odds of winning a prize depend upon the total number of eligible entries received. Nice way of saying that to max your chances, do not advertise this site.
  • I help Linux by purchasing and promoting Microsoft products.[/sarcasm]

  • Non-US not welcome (Score:3, Informative)

    by leandrod ( 17766 ) <l@dutras . o rg> on Saturday August 26, 2006 @01:18PM (#15985289) Homepage Journal
    It is still not fully functional. I can't make it understand a non-US zip code or city/country combination.

  • Ideas? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Elektroschock ( 659467 ) on Saturday August 26, 2006 @01:20PM (#15985294)
    Novell run out of ideas what to do for Linux? I have a simple idea: Listen to your customers and fire technology pushists like Nat Friedman. In fact it is Novell which fucked up our SuSe distribution and key Suse specialist were laid off, technology no one requested like Red Carpet broke stability and the KDE support, SuSe's great advantage was disrupted be the strange push for Gnome. No wonder when people like Friedman become desktop strategists. Listen to your customers, ask them what they want. Not: Listen to your managerial staff and the solutions they prefer and impose them on your userbase. It is possible that SuSe could regain its reputation. But users are fed up with Novell.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • I think you fail to understand that we paid for Suse as it was. The real problem is:

        * customer demand vs.

        * technology push

        I am a customer. I don't want technology imposed on me. I liked Suse and I want to continue to use it. Opensuse.org is only "translated to German". This sents a negative message to the German market, which is that Suse lost one of its features.

        Next they will further shorter the Suse manual, support Gnome only, add mono dependencies, ...

        1) Novell, or better SUSE listens to its customers.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Moochman ( 54872 )
          Whoah there.... I think you're seriously underestimating the commitment Suse still holds to its KDE base. Just check this project [kde.org] out (led by a German Suse engineer [kde.org] I might add)...

          Now are you still so upset? Do you STILL think Suse is letting KDE support fall by the wayside and not paying any attention to its users' needs/wants?

          BTW, what ever gave you the idea that Gnome is a **default** in the new versions? In SLED maybe, but certainly not in OpenSuse. (Unless you consider a default radio button nex

  • OK, we have a contest for people who contribute to open source software, and the prize is a license for proprietary closed-source software. What's wrong with this picture?

  • Well, I tried the signup but to my surprise "England is not a recognised country". Even though I picked it from their drop down box and it was quite clearly visible and zoomed in on the map.

    • > Well, I tried the signup but to my surprise "England is not a recognised country". Even though
      > I picked it from their drop down box and it was quite clearly visible and zoomed in on the map.

      And SuSE used to be an European company...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gilgongo ( 57446 )
      Ah yes, the old "Not American? Well, we have heard of these other places..." It's a new twist that it's not even valid though.

      This reminds me: why is it that Americans think England is a country? I'm sure they'd think it odd if I put a form on my site that listed "Texas" separately from "United States." I'm glad I'm not Scottish, Irish or Welsh.

      • This reminds me: why is it that Americans think England is a country?

        Erm... Because it is a country? I refer you to an authority [number-10.gov.uk] on the matter.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Pop69 ( 700500 )
        England is a country, the big problem is the number of people who think United Kingdom = England.
  • All right, Novell, here's my contribution to Open Source and Suse in particular:

    I just tell everyone to get rid of the zen/zmd crap and install Smart ( http://labix.org/smart [labix.org] ). This way, they can also enjoy one of the best distributions available today, only held back by your stupid screw-ups.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Joo-boon-too (Score:3, Funny)

    by Klaidas ( 981300 ) on Saturday August 26, 2006 @03:20PM (#15985681)
    Ubuntu has something like this here [ubuntu.com]
    However, you won't win any prices, so you won't have to pay
  • For a couple of years EUGLUG was able to get SuSE to send us remaindered boxed sets to hand out at the Community Village in the Oregon Country Fair, one release earlier than what was then current. A good deal, hardcopy manuals and the just past state of the art SuSE CD distros to pass out to random hippies.
    In 2004 we went back to burning our own, Somebody in Oakland dropped the ball during the merger (likely the Oakland office closed).
    Last summer and this we got Ubuntu, as many as we wished.
    Well, we'r

  • Accused as Being Proprietary? (Score:3, Informative)

    by reverendted ( 998056 ) on Saturday August 26, 2006 @07:45PM (#15986520)
    Several people have commented on SLED being proprietary. Amid this firebranding, I ask you to consider some details about SLED, SUSE, and Novell. 1. Open Source SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop was developed in open source. It includes a couple pieces of proprietary software from partner companies, such as the Macromedia Flash plugin for Firefox, RealPlayer, and Adobe Reader. It includes no proprietary kernel modules. Andreas Jaeger recently posted on SUSE's policy here [novell.com]. Novell includes a couple proprietary packages developed at Novell on the SLED10 media, but they do not install by default, and are all related to integrating with enterprise infrastructural services (already-deployed Novell enterprise systems). 2. Free Software, but Not Free Updates SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop is fully functional free software. It does not require any kind of license key. However, Novell hopes to make revenue on the software update service, as well as enterprise support, consulting, training, and other services. The activation keys activate the update service for one year. (Clever winners of the 50 1-year activations that we are giving away might extend that a bit by using the 60 day eval before they use their activation code.) 2. Free Updates? Yes, for openSUSE. Novell also underwrites another desktop distribution openSUSE, which includes a lot more packages than SLED. Anyone can download it and use it. However, SLED today has some features that were (thankfully) not included in openSUSE 10.1, the current version. (In fact, we had a major screw up with a including a not-ready component in openSUSE, causing a mess that we are still trying to clean up in the SUSE community.) The feature delta with SLED, as well as the extensive extra polishing that SLED received before shipping--have prompted many people in the community to expressed their desire to use SLED. They like what Novell has created and packaged--an amazingly well-assembled desktop system, and they would rather not wait for many of the features and design elements to appear in openSUSE 10.2. 3. Novell Contributes...a Lot Please give Novell some credit for driving many of the great Linux features that have shown up not only on SUSE Linux, but many other distributions. Novell hired David Reveman to complete his work on Xgl & Compiz, which are now available on Ubuntu, Gentoo and other distros. Novell hired Aaron Bockover to create Banshee on the Helix framework so that we could have legal mp3 on Linux. Novell bought Ximian and continues to enable them to create things like the new main menu for GNOME (Jimmy Krehl's "slab"), and solid desktop search well ahead of Microsoft Vista (which still may not ship with that feature). A major reason why plug and play devices like USB drives, mp3 players and cameras just work today is Robert Love's project Utopia. SUSE engineers today are pushing upstream Linux kernel code that has been and still is greatly extending battery life. Maybe these examples are still too self-interested? Novell employees the team that maintains GCC, which is a 100% upstream contribution the GNU toolchain, and yields zero competitive advantage to Novell. Novell CTO Jeff Jaffe has stated the reason: you can't just take, you gotta give back. That's why Novell is participating and contributing. Novell is part way through a cultural change that I think is nothing short of astounding. Say what you want about our marketing missing the mark. But if you believe that we are too proprietary, or that we do not actively engaged enough in open source, then tell us why you think so. Otherwise, is it really justified to berate Novell for being proprietary just because we have offered 50 update activation keys on an awareness campaign? Please refer people to this comment if you see accusations of SLED being proprietary. -- Ted Haeger (You can find me at http://reverendted.wordpress.com./ [reverendte...dpress.com]
    • Hello Ted,

      I'm just another opensuse user (actually I'm relatively recent user having avoided SUSE for years due to the inability to download the ISOs for free). As I'm an administrator of a few (60+) opensuse desktops too, I'm going to guess that the not-ready component you included was novell-zmd right? That thing is painful... Is it as slow for you as it is for me? Why does it go to sleep? People who think yum is slow should give this thing a whirl just after boot... Plus I never thought I'd say this but
      • Thanks for your input on my post, and the "right way to go" props.

        Regarding the updater, indeed that was the piece in question. Patches have been put out, and it's performing well now. But negative publicity on it continues. >sigh
        Not sure about the change on the Xgl keybinding. If you use the mouse wheel to zoom in, then you only need to hold the "super" key in order to pan about. Probably you already know that. :)

        Again, thanks.
        --Ted
        http://reverendted.wordpress.com
    • My colleague Richard Guenther from the GCC team has requested a correction. I said: "Novell employees the team that maintains GCC, which is a 100% upstream contribution the GNU toolchain, and yields zero competitive advantage to Novell." My mistake was that Novell does not house the actual GCC maintainers. It should read: "Novell employees a teams to contribute to GCC, which is an upstream contribution the GNU toolchain and yields little competitive advantage to Novell." --Ted
  • http://www.novell.com/linux/yourlinuxtour/ [novell.com]

    I don't know when the mapping thing was set up, but I imagine it's got something to do with the Roadshow - getting an idea of how many people would attend, perhaps?

    There aren't many people (maybe 6?) around my city (Dallas, TX) that are mapped.
  • I tried SLED 10. It's buggy as get out.
  • Too slow. Clunkly navigation. High noise to information ratio

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