Gerald Pfeifer Appointed Chair of the openSUSE Board

SUSE CTO in EMEA and open source veteran Pfeifer replaces Richard Brown as chair of openSUSE Board

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Aug 19, 2019, 15:58 ET

NUREMBERG, Germany, Aug. 19, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Seasoned open source leader Gerald Pfeifer has been appointed chair of the openSUSE board. Pfeifer's new responsibilities will begin immediately and run concurrently with his role as SUSE CTO in EMEA.

Current chair Richard Brown, who was appointed in July 2014, is resigning after five years of excellent service for a combination of personal reasons and his desire to focus on his career at SUSE^®, from where he will continue his contribution to openSUSE. Brown and Pfeifer will work closely together to transition responsibilities.

The openSUSE board, with Pfeifer's support, will continue to provide input, governance and assistance to the openSUSE Project, the developer of leading infrastructure software and application delivery tools, including several Linux operating systems.

Based in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, Pfeifer, in his role as SUSE CTO, is charged with leading strategic dialogue with customers, partners and open source communities globally. He was previously responsible for the creation and progression of SUSE's broad portfolio of open source enterprise software.

"I could not be more excited and humbled to participate in the openSUSE Project as board chair," Pfeifer said. "Collaboration in the openSUSE community has contributed to remarkable Linux distributions, and I'm looking forward to ongoing growth in both the community and the openSUSE distributions – Linux and beyond – and tools. openSUSE is at the leading edge of a historic shift, as open source software is now a critical part of any thriving enterprise's core business strategy. This is an exciting time for the openSUSE community as well as open source at large."

SUSE is deeply committed to openSUSE's development model and to being a sponsor and supporter of the project. This partnership has created a unique and deeply collaborative working relationship that can be seen in projects like Open Build Service and openQA. While the relationship has its roots in Linux, in recent years it has expanded as a growing number of new infrastructure software standards are built on and from open source innovation. As the world's largest independent open source company, SUSE will continue its support for openSUSE.

Thomas Di Giacomo, SUSE president of Engineering, Product and Innovation, said, "I am extremely pleased to announce Gerald Pfeifer as the new chair of the openSUSE board. With two decades of involvement and expertise in various open source communities, combined with a deep and broad understanding of SUSE from the senior leadership roles he has been holding, Gerald is the perfect candidate to work with and support the openSUSE board in keeping the community and projects vibrant and ever evolving. That said, Richard Brown has done an exceptional job chairing the openSUSE board and I am delighted to continue working with him as colleagues at SUSE.

"Going forward SUSE will focus on maintaining its collaboration with openSUSE and creating value for our shared ecosystem, evolving both our business and communities with the backing of growth investor EQT."

About openSUSE
The openSUSE project is a worldwide effort that promotes the use of Linux everywhere. openSUSE creates some of the world's best Linux distributions, working together in an open, transparent and friendly manner as part of the worldwide Free and Open Source Software community. For more information, visit www.opensuse.org.

About SUSE
SUSE, the world's largest independent open source company, powers digital transformation with agile, enterprise-grade open source solutions, edge to core to cloud. Collaborating with partners, communities and customers, SUSE delivers and supports enterprise-grade Linux, software-defined infrastructure and application delivery solutions to create, deploy and manage workloads anywhere – on premise, hybrid and multi-cloud – with exceptional service, value and flexibility. For more information, visit www.suse.com.

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