An open letter to the openSUSE Community

The following is a joint statement from openSUSE Board Members Pascal
Bleser and Bryen Yunashko.

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As you may know, recently Novell made the decision to reduce the
workforce in their organization in the wake of our current economic
outlook which is affecting everyone globally in all sectors of life.
Unfortunately, this has also impacted some members of the openSUSE
Community who were employed by Novell when, earlier this week, they were
laid off.

We hear about layoffs every day now.  Most of us have been hit by
layoffs in recent times, if not personally, then friends and family.
The sadness we feel for our fellow community members is just as strong
and our hearts go out to them in this time.

Some people have approached us publicly and privately and asked us what
this means for the future of openSUSE.  In fact, openSUSE is a community
project driven both by Novell and the Community at large.  Within this
project, we make no distinction between Novell and non-Novell employees.
As such, those laid off are still important and vital members of our
Project, and we look forward to the opportunity to continue working with
them as fellow members for the good of our community, our distribution
and for Free and Opensource software at large.

Our observations over the past week convince us that Novell is still
committed to the openSUSE Project.  It is also our observation that the
community as a whole remains active, vibrant and motivated.  Our
colleagues employed by Novell have assured us that while there is some
frustrations and disappointment, they and the company are still as
committed as ever to the openSUSE Project.

As we have mentioned, these are difficult times for everyone and hard
decisions have been made by Novell.  While we cannot speak for Novell
and the reasons behind its decisions, we do take offense to those
outside our community who have decided to exploit the hardship of our
fellow community members in these trying economic times for their own
personal gain in their misguided rants against the Project and
misinterpreted portrayals to the general public.

We'd like to wish our friends good luck with their respective careers,
hoping they will soon find another job, and also hoping that their
contributions, their expertise and their commitment for the openSUSE
Project will sustain not just for the sake of it, but also and foremost,
because they're our friends.


Pascal Bleser
openSUSE Board Member

Bryen Yunashko
openSUSE Board Member

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