If they're public, they have huge pressure. If not, they can play their own game with a specific strategy that a shareholder might not like. So this could well be a good thing. Public trading usually leads to enshitification.
this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
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Marcel LUX III SARL
Company wholly owned by the EQT group, a publicly traded global investment organization. This is just going to lead to more enshittification.
That being the reason why valve are able to produce quality over quantity
Used to think the same about LTT though
I wonder what would that mean for openSUSE, given that, apparently, an equity firm is making decisions on behalf of the SUSE board 😞
It's private equity. Assume it's going to involve bending over with no lube and a lot of lawyers.
Username checks out
Choo choooo all aboard the Enshittification Express
A bit of a shame because i've been eyeing a few Rolling Release distros to move to.
Edit: typo
Debian calmly sipping tea in the corner
There's really no reason not to check out OpenSUSE, if you wanted to. If it does go down the enshittification path, it'll no doubt be forked, given how relatively popular it is.
This move isn't anything new by the way - SUSE was only public for two years, and was a private entity prior to that. If you're worried about enshittification, you should've worried about it back when it was acquired by Novell, in 2003. Everyone said SUSE was doomed, but it continued on without any issues. SUSE changed ownership thrice since then, and yet it still stands strong, even two decades after Novell's acquisition. So I expect this move won't change anything, at least in the short term.
Of course they weren't doomed during the Novell era, when they helped MS screw over the entire Linux community, and they sold Linux licences to MS that MS would sell to their customers as security that they won't sue them for using Linux and therefore infringing on MS's patents.
That's reassuring, never knew about OpenSUSE's aquisition history. Thanks for the info 👌
I checked out Leap a while back and was really impressed with how well thought out everything is, especially the control panel (I think it was called Yast?)
That’s a good question, and who is the mysterious 3rd party SUSE is going to be merged with?
Debian is looking better and better everyday.
Debian is looking better and better everyday.
No, don't jinx it.
Too late. Already had to deploy GitLab on it.
Hopefully nothing too drastic, but also according to the article they were only publicly traded from 2021 to now, so for most of their existence they were in private hands anyway, albeit being passed around a fair bit.
I missed the point wrt 2021. That's somehow comforting/reassuring. Thanks.
SUSE was already private under an equity firm until 2021 (EQT). Probably fine.
From what I've read this Marcel LUX III SARL company is also just a holding company under EQT. So nothing major has changed there.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The SUSE organization has changed hands many times over the years... From being its own independent company to the notable acquisition by Novell two decades ago.
Over the past decade SUSE has changed hands between Attachmate, Micro Focus, EQT Partners, and then went public back in 2021 on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
Marcel LUX III SARL (Marcel) as the largest shareholder in SUSE is planning to take the company private and delist it from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
In taking SUSE private, the EQT Private Equity / Marcel is offering a ~16 EUR per share price, around a 67% premium over today's share price.
"SUSE’s Management Board and Supervisory Board support the strategic opportunity from delisting of the company as it will allow SUSE to focus fully on its operational priorities and execution of its long-term strategy.
The interim dividend will be paid to all shareholders prior to the settlement of the Offer and will allow Marcel to finance its purchase of SUSE shares under the Offer and certain transaction costs incurred by it."
I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Good bot!
Also, I'd argue this is a good step forward for Suse, as it will take a lot of shareholder pressure off of them.
That's fantastic. That means they'll focus more on quality, not just profit for the blackholes, I mean shareholders. I don't use suse, but I'm very happy this is happening.
Let's remember a time when Suse was owned by Nowell. Suse "admited" to Linux infringing on Microsoft's patents in order to screw over redhat, and that allowed MS to continuously harras the entire Linux community for like a decade.
Doubt.
You're free to.
I can't decide if this will be a good idea or not
The Grim Distro Reaper has been busy this year.
Debian for the win, baby! It's been standing for 30 years and still kicking! Back, Grim Distro Realer!
Please, also don't jinx it...
I view the Grim Distro Reaper as someone trying to fight a hydra. If you don't cut off all the heads/forks/derivatives at once, you truly haven't killed it.
I mean I don’t think it’s the same as red hat at all because they are not making it closed source.
Canonical
Looking pretty good right now among the corporate distro makers. 🥲
I mean, Canonical is also privately held and not publicly listed. And it looks like this is the same private equity firm that owned SUSE fully before taking them public. (Marcel LUX III SARL is a holding company owned by EQT Private Equity.)
Canonical is also privately held and not publicly listed.
For sure. The difference is in who the owner is and what their track record in regards to FOSS is. Putting the 19 years of BDFL's Canonical ownership together, I think he's generally been okay. The core products have always been open source and free for both commercial and non-commercial use. I don't know much about the private equity firm currently holding SUSE.
And it looks like this is the same private equity firm that owned SUSE fully before taking them public. (Marcel LUX III SARL is a holding company owned by EQT Private Equity.)
I guess that's a positive, but we really don't know what direction they'd take once the curtains close. Chances are profit maximization will be at the top of the list. It's unknown how that will translate in reality in the short and long term. E.g. would they be nice and give stuff for free early to steal customers from RHEL, tightening down the road, or cutting costs today to make a buck now. It's anyone's guess.
| the core products have been open source
They have been pushing more of the distribution into their proprietary app store format despite what the community says about it
At least Fedora and Flatpak does better...
Gross, gross, grrooossssss!