With the release of openSUSE 13.2 in November, two of openSUSE’s open-source projects, the ‘Tumbleweed’ and ‘Factory’ rolling releases will be merging, and offered as a single openSUSE rolling release under the name ‘Tumbleweed’

Factory will remain the name of the development process where openSUSE’s new developments are integrated, with the tested, user-ready rolling release assuming the name Tumbleweed from Nov. 4.

“With the release of openSUSE 13.2 due in November, we realised this was a perfect opportunity to merge our two openSUSE rolling-releases together so users of Tumbleweed can benefit from the developments to our Factory development process over the last few years,” said Richard Brown, Chairman of openSUSE board. “The combined feedback and contributions from our combined Tumbleweed and Factory users should help keep openSUSE rolling forward even faster, while offering our users the latest and greatest applications on a stable rolling release.”

Technical details for existing Factory and Tumbleweed users will be published closer to Nov. 4 to explain what steps need to be carried out to smoothly migrate to the new ‘combined’ Tumbleweed rolling release.

“The changes to the Factory release model have changed it from being an unstable development codebase into the type of rolling release I set out to create when starting openSUSE Tumbleweed,” said Greg Kroah-Hartman, Linux Kernel Developer and creator of openSUSE Tumbleweed. “I’m very happy to see these two rolling releases coming together under the name Tumbleweed, and am looking forward to watching how it develops in the future.”

Establishing Factory as the clear ‘development project’ for the ‘ready-to-use’ Tumbleweed rolling release clarifies Factory’s role as a development codebase for openSUSE software, alongside Tumbleweed as user-ready distribution with rolling, tested updates, Brown said.