Renaming openSUSE

In mid-May, LWN reported on the discussions in the openSUSE project over whether a separation from SUSE would be a good move. It would appear that this issue has been resolved and that openSUSE will be setting up a foundation as its new home independent of the SUSE corporation. But now the community has been overtaken by a new, related discussion that demonstrates a characteristic of free-software projects: the hardest issues are usually related to naming.

Creating a foundation

At the 2019 openSUSE Conference, the openSUSE board discussed governance options at length. There will evidently be an official statement on its conclusions in the near future, but that has not been posted as of this writing. It would appear, though, that the board chose a foundation structure over the other options. A German registered association (e. V.) would have been easier to set up than a foundation, but an association has weaker restrictions so it could potentially shift its focus away from the openSUSE mission. Joining another umbrella group seemingly lacked appeal from the beginning, as did the option of doing nothing and leaving things as they are now.

The stated purpose of the foundation is to make it easier for openSUSE to accept donations and manage its own finances — things that are hard for the project to do now. The foundation structure, in particular, allows the project to enshrine its core objectives (such as support for free software) into the DNA of the organization, making it hard to divert the foundation toward some other goal. A foundation also allows openSUSE to retain its current governing board and membership structure.

In the absence of an official statement from the board, details on the decision and the reasoning behind it can be had by watching this YouTube video of a question-and-answer session with the board at the openSUSE Conference.

One motivation for the change that wasn't highlighted in the board session, but which was an undercurrent in the discussions leading up to it, is a desire for more independence from SUSE in general driven by concerns about what the company might do in the future. Such worries are not entirely irrational, even though by all accounts SUSE management is fully supportive of openSUSE now. A company's attitude can change quickly even in the absence of external events like a change of ownership. If SUSE were to be sold yet again, the new owners could take a rather dimmer view of the openSUSE project.

Time for a new name?

Such worries seem to be a key driver of the next possible change for the project: as initially proposed by Stasiek Michalski, the newly independent openSUSE project might well change its name, its logo, or both. It goes without saying, though, that there is no consensus behind any such change at this early stage.

The primary motivation for a name change is, as described by openSUSE board chair Richard Brown, trademarks. Since "openSUSE" contains "SUSE", the company will have to retain a significant amount of control over what the foundation can do with its own name, which "makes such things rather complicated". He later added:

One other consequence of the current trademark situation, Brown said, is that the openSUSE board spends a significant amount of its time dealing with trademark issues, to the detriment of the rest of the project. In the future, he said, trademark restrictions could limit how the project could market itself, "and Marketing is an area which I think everyone would say we should be expanding upon, not limiting ourselves". For these reasons, Brown is in favor of picking a new name as the new foundation is created.

Others agreed, and supplied some additional reasons; Alberto Planas Domingue, for example, argued that a new name would allow the project to cast off an (in his view) reputation as a "traditional distribution" and highlight the interesting new technology that it is built around now. Jim Henderson added that there is a fair amount of confusion among users about the distinction between the SUSE Linux Enterprise and openSUSE distributions; a name change could help to clear that up.

Unsurprisingly, others feel that a name change would be a bad idea. Board member Simon Lees, for example, pointed out that SUSE has given the board "quite some guarantee" that the project would be able to use the openSUSE name for as long as it needs to. Should the relationship with the company deteriorate, the project will have time to consider a name change, and the additional press that would result from such a situation would be helpful in establishing the new name.

Others agreed with that position and added to it. Sarah Julia Kriesch argued that openSUSE is a well-known name that should not be discarded without a reason. Ancor Gonzalez Sosa said that a name change now would give the impression of a bad breakup with SUSE, which is not the case. Michal Kubecek worried that a renamed openSUSE would become "Yet Another Linux Distribution"; the Fedora project, he said, suffered from its name change. Marcus Meissner said that a name change would cause the distribution to lose many of its users: "The brand is the most important part on keeping the distribution alive. Throwing it away means throwing the distribution away, sorry." Robert Schweikert said that the project lacks the funding to make a name change stick, and said that such a change is unnecessary if the primary objective of the foundation really is to make financial matters easier to deal with.

No consensus

The discussion has been remarkably civil for what is an inherently controversial topic — openSUSE seems to be made up of a lot of pleasant and respectful people. Hopefully that atmosphere will sustain itself as the discussion drags out and eventually comes to a vote. There is no sign of an emerging consensus at this point; a decision might eventually have to be made without one. However it happens, it is likely to take time, and the project is likely to continue to use the openSUSE name for years even if a name change happens. As Brown put it:

For what it's worth, changing the logo seems to be rather less controversial — though some community members are adamant that the green color should be retained. A separate discussion, along with a possible replacement, can be found on this issue-tracker page.

One interesting aspect of this discussion is that at no point has anybody suggested a replacement name; if the people behind the proposal have one in mind, they are keeping it to themselves for now. That would be wise; a decision like this is hard enough without the additional complication of picking a new name at the same time. Should it come to a name change, though, expect another thread as the community works out what the new name should be.

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