I don't know if this is a "correlation vs causation" thing, or if the political discussion has anything to do with it. Also, this isn't very true that they can't find candidates, but the election for their board IS a shallow pool to pick from (4 people for 3 spots).

But that said, I haven't seen a lot of enthusiasm in OpenSUSE as a project in awhile one way or another. This is dating back a few years.

The things that it is trying to do to stand out just...well, aren't drawing a lot of community enthusiasm! Especially not compared to the buzz that System76 has generated with Cosmic Desktop, or the Universal Blue project as a whole with their immutable spin on Fedora (Bazzite especially drawing the most buzz), or even Rhino Linux. The things that OpenSUSE are trying to do are being done by other projects, but faster and with more press, and have results to show for it.

Even taking the flawed Distrowatch with a grain of salt, all metrics show that OpenSUSE isn't garnering the interest it once did.

I mean, even Debian is moving faster than OpenSUSE these days, and getting more attention, and that says something.

Without project enthusiasm, you aren't going to find a deep pool of people willing to captain the boat. It may not be sinking, but it's not moving forward either.

And really, this is a problem for the entire FOSS community, big and small.

-Matt




On 1/28/25 20:06, Matthew Gibson via PLUG-discuss wrote:
I recently watched a video on YouTube about openSUSE and how it is struggling to find candidates to run for its governing board. 

Is this a leading edge of Linux and open source projects failing all together or will there be a resurgence of tolerance in the community for individuality in all its flavors? or will projects burn to the ground to give space for new forks to rise from the ashes like phoenix?

I'm curious what other users have experienced when differences of opinion get in the way of good things and cause mass destruction of projects.

openSUSE Unable to Find Board Candidates After Banning Conservatives

Thanks for your insight and wisdom, should you choose to share them.

Matthew

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