SlackwareThis Forum is for the discussion of Slackware Linux.
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Distribution: Debian, Red Hat, Slackware, Fedora, Ubuntu
Posts: 13,602
Rep:
Interview with Patrick Volkerding
I'm happy to announce that Patrick Volkerding has agreed to be next in the LQ Interview Series. Let me know what questions you'd like me to ask in this thread. I'll pick some of the best ones and add them to the questions I already have and then them to Patrick some time next week.
--jeremy
Click here to see the post LQ members have rated as the most helpful post in this thread.
Last edited by ruario; 04-20-2012 at 01:22 PM.
Reason: changed the team link from wikipedia to the release notes. Added a link to AlienBOB's post and the Slackware store.
I would suggest that people actually come up with good questions, not those that are answered in the FAQ already. (In case of the when ready .. General FAQ, #5 if I am not mistaken.)
1) slackware.com contains a good amount of deprecated information. Have you considered updating the site or nominating a site maintainer or making it into a wiki where others can keep it up-to-date ? (or at least nominating a site like slackwiki.com to be the official wiki).
2) Every time slackware.com goes down, people panic, and sometimes this can hurt slackware's reputation and prevent it from reaching its full potential. Have you considered alternative hosting options or converting it to a wiki ? (or at least posting what's going on somewhere to stop wild speculation of impending doom and apocalypse)
3) As the sole slackware maintainer and BDFL have you ever considered a more interactive approach to distro development and maintenance ? For example, using git to maintain the slackbuilds, and maybe let others contribute ? This may lighten the load on you and the other non-official maintainers.
4) How are things going in general ? (hopefully well) Is there anything slackware fans can do to help with any inconveniences ?
5) Have you considered ways to better communicate with slackware users, like a blog ?
Please, no more "when is the next release", it is in the FAQ:
Quote:
Q: When will the next version of Slackware be released?
It's usually our policy not to speculate on release dates, since that's what it is -- pure speculation. It's not always possible to know how long it will take to make the upgrades needed and tie up all the related loose ends. As things are built for the upcoming release, they'll be uploaded into the -current tree. If the -current does not exist, it probably means we have just released a new version of Slackware. A new -current tree will be formed shortly after the new release is made.
No, it is not on the FAQ. The FAQ talks about an roadmap of releases, not about a discrete release. Every developer has an estimation of the next one. Always. At least an approximate one.
I know Pat doesn't want to schedulle the releases, but please, don't be more catholic than the Pope. Asking for next release after a whole year is not a sin!!
Slackware it's a great distro. Is the one I use since 1994, but it also has a bunch of extremists as fans.
The wider Slackware community seems to get extremely protective of Pat when it perceives any kind of negativity. Is that helpful, or should we all just chill out?
The desktop environments and their dependencies continue to add bulk, and slackware-current seems to be bigger than a DVD at the moment. Is that going to cause a problem for the next release?
Right now, there are a number of quite intrusive technical changes coming from the big distributions. (It would perhaps be provocative to be specific, but I guess we all know who and what.) Is this a threat to Slackware's distinctiveness? Do Pat and the team get consulted? Are there any of these changes that Pat would commend to us?
Yes, the next version of Slackware will be released when it's ready.
The question I've had is how does Pat determine that the next version is ready? Is it just a whim? Is there stress and stability testing involved? If so, what kind? Is there some sort of goal that has to be achieved for a release? What is the process by which a Slackware release is deemed ready?
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