Haeger evangelizes OpenSuSE

Last week I mentioned Novell’s new OpenSuSE project. What I didn’t mention, because I didn’t know it at the time, was the name of the person who’ll be talking it up: none other than our old friend Ted Haeger.

Technology evangelist “The Rev.” Haeger first showed up in this newsletter a couple of years ago, when I mentioned that he had been involved deeply with Novell’s iManage Portal.

Every time I hear from Haeger he has a new job at Novell. He hasn’t served a term as CEO just yet, but I’ll bet it’s in his long-term plans.

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Last week I mentioned Novell’s new OpenSuSE project. What I didn’t mention, because I didn’t know it at the time, was the name of the person who’ll be talking it up: none other than our old friend Ted Haeger.

Technology evangelist “The Rev.” Haeger first showed up in this newsletter a couple of years ago, when I mentioned that he had been involved deeply with Novell’s iManage Portal.

Every time I hear from Haeger he has a new job at Novell. He hasn’t served a term as CEO just yet, but I’ll bet it’s in his long-term plans.

He was just recently named to the post of "director, Novell user communities." What’s that? In Ted’s words: “my job is to foster our traditional user groups - those affiliated through Novell Users International [NUI] - and newer user groups and forums - such as Linux User Groups - by better connecting them with what's going on at Novell.”

So what’s that got to do with OpenSuSE? If you’re a member of NUI, watch for an announcement about an upcoming Webcast wherein The Rev explains the goodness of OpenSuSE. Or, if you happened to be in Beijing last week, you might have heard Haeger waxing poetic about the virtues of OpenSuSE.

Novell also took the opportunity to invest heavily in Chinese open source by creating the Novell China research and development center and opened a dedicated Chinese-language site for the OpenSuSE project. While the government of China might officially frown on religious expression, they may be daunted by the kind of evangelism that The Rev brings when he wants to talk up a project. China represents a strategic gain for Novell, and for open source, in the struggle to overcome the Microsoft worldwide hegemony. And if it’s going to be a battle of words for the hearts and minds of developers and users, then Ted Haeger is the weapon I’d like to have on my side.

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