openSUSE:Distribution platform strategy
Proposals: Home for developer 路 Mobile and cloud ready distribution 路 Base for derivatives 路 The #1 KDE distribution 路 For the productive poweruser 路 The Linux distribution platform 路 Status Quo, and quantified so 路 Overview of proposals
openSUSE, the Linux distribution platform
Goals
The goal of openSUSE as a project is to provide a platform for distributing Linux and software running on Linux to a wide range of users. This platform consists of tools for creating software distributions, the openSUSE distribution as base and reference implementation, and the community supporting the tools and the distribution.
On top of the platform the openSUSE universe consists of more specific distributions, which make use of openSUSE infrastructure and technology. Examples are SLES, MeeGo, openSUSE Education, KDE and GNOME live systems, and could also be for example developer or cloud oriented distributions and more. So openSUSE provides a way for subteams to address specific user groups and needs. openSUSE also provides means to distribute software independent of the environment of the user to spread Linux based software and make software easily available for use in the openSUSE distribution and systems based on it.
The openSUSE distribution acts as a reference distribution, providing an environment for testing the used technology, a stabilizing ground for common components, and a real-life use case for applying technology and distributing Linux software. It's targeted at technically interested users, including programmers and system administrators. It has a focus on good user experience and making technology available to end users. It doesn't target users with highly specific technical needs.
Activities
Essentials
- Provide stable set of supported core packages distributions can build on
- Broad hardware support of components and platforms
- Provide tools for package and distribution building and testing (e.g. openSUSE Build Service)
- Provide common building blocks for distribution, e.g. installer, configuration tool, maintenance tools, development tools for web, native and other applications, and more
- Provide home for overall community and specific openSUSE teams, e.g. bug tracker, wiki, mailing lists, collaboration tools
- Create the official openSUSE distribution as reference implementation
- Enable, support, and collaborate with specific teams to create their own distributions
- Enable and support, and collaborate with upstream developers to build and distribute their software on openSUSE
Good to have
- Provide wide variety of packages for further use
- Community for user support
- Work on standards which make it easier to mix components, e.g. free desktop standards
- Collaboration with other distribution platforms
No focus
- Directly providing a polished distribution for non-technical end users
- Bleeding edge technology