Novell Promises Continued Support for SuSE Linux

As Novell Inc. moves closer to shipping its Linux Desktop, the company wants to make sure that its SuSE Linux Desktop customers understand that it will continue to be fully support that product.

The current Novell/SuSE Linux desktop, SuSE Linux Professional, will become more of a community desktop, similar to Fedora, while the Novell Linux Desktop will eventually become the company's desktop for the business market, according to Ted Haeger, the Linux Desktop's director of marketing.

However, this doesn't mean that the SuSE Linux Professional desktop is going to become a community supported Linux distribution the way Fedora is, said Kevan Barney, Novell's senior manager of public relations. The "Fedora comparison was strictly related to target market," he said.

"In other words, SuSE Linux Pro is targeted to the Linux enthusiast/retail market like Fedora is, but we are going about getting our product to that market in a very different way than Red Hat is. We're going to continue to develop, support, etc., SL Pro for that market, as we, and SuSE before, have always done," Barney said.

While Fedora has gained some popularity as a community Linux, SuSE users have no desire to see their desktop follow in its footsteps.

People "are jumping to the conclusion that that means we're turning SL Pro over to the community for caretaking, like Red Hat has done with Fedora. And people don't like that idea," Barney said.

That has never been Novell's intent, he said.

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