SUSE, the company behind Rancher, NeuVector, and SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE), has announced that 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.

Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen, CEO of SUSE, said, “For decades, collaboration and shared success have been the building blocks of our open source community. 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.

“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.”