Novell has just published its Opensuse user survey [PDF]. It is a rather extensive paper. One noteworthy fact which caught my eye is that 98% of the responders were male.

It is nice to see what users prefer. Nevertheless, questions which are of more interest to skeptics like ourselves seem to be missing. The highly biased and flawed surveys simply do not cut it. As it stands, Novell does not involve the community when it comes to managerial decisions. It does not even seem to listen. Its speaks on behalf of its customers, but there is gross generalisation and lack of understanding. The betrayal of many volunteers and enthusiasts (including myself) has proven this.

The company should have queried or surveyed its community before making the deal with Microsoft. The process totally lacked transparency, let alone interaction and consultation with some in-house developers, based on facts we have received. In that respect, Novell could learn from Dell, which seems to be reaching out to its clients in better ways nowadays (albeit just at a technical level).

Open Source company, closed-source management. Novell has plenty of room for improvement; but instead it takes a passive and arrogant approach.