LUXEMBOURG, July 11, 2023 — SUSE today announced it is forking publicly available Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and will develop and maintain a RHEL-compatible distribution available to all without restrictions. Over the next few years, SUSE plans to invest more than $10 million into this project.

“For decades, collaboration and shared success have been the building blocks of our open source community,” said Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen, CEO of SUSE. “We have a responsibility to defend these values. This investment will preserve the flow of innovation for years to come and ensures that customers and community alike are not subjected to vendor lock-in and have genuine choice tomorrow as well as today.”

SUSE remains fully committed to investing in its highly regarded Linux solutions such as SLE and openSUSE that countless satisfied enterprise customers and the community rely on. At the same time, it acknowledges that enterprises and the open source community deserve choice and freedom from vendor lock-in. SUSE has a long history in empowering and supporting users with mixed Linux environments.

SUSE is committed to working with the open source community to develop a long-term, enduring compatible alternative for RHEL and CentOS users. SUSE plans to contribute this project to an open source foundation, which will provide ongoing free access to alternative source code.

“This collaborative effort demonstrates SUSE’s deep-rooted commitment to fostering innovation and nurturing community-driven development, and it reinforces the fundamental values of open source software. We invite the community to actively engage and collaborate in shaping the future of this essential software,” said Dr. Thomas Di Giacomo, Chief Technology and Product Officer, SUSE. “We firmly believe this new RHEL-compatible Linux distribution, together with SUSE’s portfolio, will help the community and customers navigate unprecedented advancements in enterprise Linux, cloud computing, containerization, edge, AI/ML and other emerging technologies.”

“The enterprise Linux community requires standardization, stability, and consistency,” said Gregory Kurtzer, CEO of CIQ and Founder of Rocky Linux. “CIQ is bringing stability to our partners, customers, and community, by building a broad coalition of like-minded companies, organizations, and individuals. SUSE has embodied the core principles and spirit of open source; CIQ is thrilled to collaborate with SUSE on advancing an open enterprise Linux standard.”

To read more about how this strengthens Liberty Linux and how to get involved, click here.

About SUSE

SUSE is a global leader in innovative, reliable and secure enterprise-grade open source solutions, relied upon by more than 60% of the Fortune 500 to power their mission-critical workloads. We specialize in Business-critical Linux, Enterprise Container Management and Edge solutions, and collaborate with partners and communities to empower our customers to innovate everywhere – from the data center to the cloud, to the edge and beyond. SUSE puts the “open” back in open source, giving customers the ability to tackle innovation challenges today and the freedom to evolve their strategy and solutions tomorrow. The company employs more than 2,000 people globally. SUSE is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

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Source: SUSE