SUSE exec blurts that the company uses Teams • The Register

The Dogfooding Gap

At this year's Open Source Policy Summit, SUSE's Dominic Laurie accidentally revealed what many in the industry have long suspected: major Linux vendors don't actually run their own businesses on open source software. During a panel discussion on "Sovereignty and Procurement," Laurie closed the session by saying "We'll give you three minutes back, as they say on Teams meetings!"

The other panelists immediately picked up on this telling detail, with Polish MEP Michał Kobosko calling it "a bit of a giveaway."

This revelation matters because SUSE is a Gold-level sponsor of the summit, whose tagline is "Digital Sovereignty Runs on Open Source." Yet the company that preaches digital sovereignty to others apparently doesn't practice it internally.

The Microsoft Model

The irony runs deeper when you consider how Microsoft approaches this exact challenge. The company has a long-standing practice of "eating its own dogfood" - running its entire business on its own products, even when it's difficult and expensive.

Microsoft's migration of Hotmail from FreeBSD and Solaris to Windows servers took multiple attempts and considerable expense. Similarly, when LinkedIn's migration from CentOS to Azure Linux failed initially, Microsoft tried again until it succeeded. These weren't profit centers - they were costly exercises in building internal expertise and improving Microsoft's own products.

The FOSS Vendor Contradiction

The problem extends beyond SUSE. Red Hat employees have been spotted using Gmail and Google Apps. Canonical reportedly uses similar proprietary services. This creates a fundamental contradiction: companies whose core marketing message is that open source is superior are paying for proprietary alternatives.

Consider the scale: Red Hat has 19,000 employees, SUSE has 2,500, and Canonical has around 1,200. That's thousands of users who could be running open source groupware solutions instead of paying Microsoft or Google.

Available FOSS Alternatives

There's no shortage of open source groupware options. German companies like Open-Xchange, ownCloud, Nextcloud, and Grommunio offer complete collaboration suites. Matrix is becoming the chat layer for governments pursuing digital sovereignty. Other options include SoGo, Kolab, Zimbra, and even the venerable Citadel project dating back to the 1980s.

Why This Matters

Email and groupware represent significant costs for companies. The arguments for digital sovereignty are compelling: if you must spend money, keep it local. Regional governments can support local businesses; national organizations can keep resources within their country or allied nations, not distant and potentially hostile ones.

But there's a deeper issue. FOSS isn't some niche tool suitable only for servers or web hosting. It's the foundation of modern computing. Commercial software is actually the side effect - the visible peak of an iceberg built on mountains of open source code.

The Apple and Microsoft Contrast

Apple builds macOS and iOS from FOSS components, focusing its efforts on the graphical layers. Microsoft has gone further, making an entire Linux OS an optional feature of Windows. Both companies stay relevant by intelligently adopting and adapting open source rather than reinventing wheels.

Linux vendors need to do the same. They should identify where they're using proprietary tools and work out which parts can be done in FOSS. This isn't just about principle - it's about making better products and maintaining competitive advantage.

The Bottom Line

Using proprietary communications tools to run companies whose core message is that FOSS is better is a contradiction of epic scale. FOSS is an ecosystem built by thousands of people and organizations working together. When FOSS vendors pay for proprietary alternatives, they're helping their rivals while weakening their own market position.

Any management team that thinks it makes better sense to help rival vendors by paying for their products, rather than keeping that money in their own market, should return their MBAs. The message from the Open Source Policy Summit was clear: digital sovereignty matters. But apparently, it only matters for customers, not for the vendors selling it.