SUSE does what Red Hat does (work on the software it ships). In addition to that it also provides Enterprise Support for RHEL :). Which might make it both good and evil you could say or maybe just chameleonic.
This needs a citation.
I for one do not agree with you. Looking at the statistics of top kernel contributors for kernel 2.6.35 by lines changed¹, Red Hat can claim 7.8% of lines changed while Novell (SuSE) is at 4.7%. The difference is considerable but I do not think it's fair to say that that it's "Not to anywhere even close to approaching Red Hat's extend[sic]".
These statistics obviously cover just the kernel. The Linux environment is much larger than that, and it should be pointed out that SuSE is _the_ major contributor to KDE with openSUSE being generally regarded as the top-of-the-line KDE distribution. Novell also contributes significantly to GNOME.
I do not want to turn this comment into a laundry list of SuSE contributions to Linux, so I'll just say that IMO SuSE are certainly holding their own as the 2nd largest enterprise Linux vendor in terms of contribution to the general Linux ecosystem. If you do not agree, I would appreciate it if you could back your opinion with substantial evidence as opposed to just making unsubstantiated claims.
Being strict, actually isn't Linux just a kernel? Just being a BSD troll.
I am no Oracle fan but I'm already using Btrfs and am pleased to finally have something in the same vein as ZFS for Linux.
Obviously, they didn't adopt all of Oracle's tactics. Nobody else is doing what Oracle does either (though we can be happy about that).
No, Red Hat develops software, Oracle mooches off Red Hat's work. They have made this change to ensure that they can stay in business, which is important because unlike Oracle, they actually do work on the software they ship.
They can't adopt Oracle's tactics because there is nobody else doing what Red Hat does.