So many great questions, but I'll try to think of some that weren't mentioned.

1. Long time ago Slackware was known as one of the easiest Linux distributions to install. Today, non-Slackware users often complain it's one of the hardest. Do you think today's Linux users are less computer literate than before and does this also affects some of your choices when putting Slack together or you simply don't think about it and do your thing?
2. Slack had always had somewhat closed model of coming to life. What is the best way to contribute to Slackware? Maybe contributing to popular community projects? Or is it best to start Slack related project and see if it catches on?
3. What do you think of SBo? I saw it got some mention in recent README(S). Also, I see a lot of people cheering to see sbopkg tool in some of the future releases? What's your opinion on that?

Other than that I want just to say I've been happy Slackware user for 8 years and want to thank you for all the Slack.

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What is the best way we can contribute to Slackware?

There seems to be quite a bit of duplication in the software that comes with Slackware? (lots of programs that do the same thing)

Is the next release going to use GRUB?

I do the same thing, but I was wondering if Pat was going to implement them into Slackware.

Slackware has a reputation of being one of the most difficult linux distros. What are your thoughts on that? Do you feel that Slackware is wrongly considered difficult, Do you think that people are correct in calling tough and challenging?

Taking that one step further, how does Slackware's reputation make you, personally, feel? Is it a point of pride that your distro is considered difficult and expert level, or do you view that negatively because it keeps new users from wanting to try Slack?

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Which is the way to use xclock, if you think about it. But I do, too - got a toggle mapped to mod4-t in fvwm which launches/closes a spiffy digital xclock.

I can only think of one meta-question: what question are you surprised you've never been asked in an interview? (And what's the answer to it?)

I'll add votes to some good questions I've seen:

I thought H_TeXMeX_H's (post #9) were kind of interestingly edgy.

I liked all of 55020's (#13) and especially the last, though I'm not so concerned with the specific crisis-of-the-moment but generally, yeah, maintaining Slack's continued distinctiveness against the ceaseless tide of larger distros' non-optimal decisions is probably my single biggest concern/question. How important is it and hard is it to keep Slack Slack?

ruario's (#26) is interesting - the {,/usr}/bin merge is "wha-huh?" but I wouldn't have a problem with going with the /usr/share thing (or not). A tangential question might be "do we know all the symlinks throughout the filesystem are truly still necessary?" One of Slack's great virtues is backward-compatibility but Slack's hierarchy is very, uh, linky.

I agree with dugan, if not on the specific question (#32) but an interview shouldn't be all work and no play. For instance, since we're without Jerry, are there any bands who help fill the void? What concerts has he caught lately? Maybe some questions like that.

Really like kingbeowulf's second question (#49): a neo-zipslack. One of the reasons I started using Slack is because I was able to experiment with Linux on old machines with Slack-derivatives (Basic (two floppies, IIRC) and Vector) and sub-Slack (Zipslack) before moving on into the One True Slack. I haven't messed with an older computer/Slack in a long time but I believe in keeping the entry-level open and in valuing older machines.

Agree with sahko's point (#58) - be sure to wish him well from the Slack forum.

To answer some questions that I haven't seen already answered (not that he couldn't obviously answer them better but, in case he doesn't get asked):

Fantastic: he can program in at least C, I believe, though I don't know if he does a lot of drawing-board-to-finished-giant-program programming. Part of the reason you have color in your 'ls' is because of Pat and, while dialog was actually written and maintained by others, I believe there's some code in there from him. And, of course, there's all the evaluating or creating patches.

dugan/sycamorex/ChrisAbela: unless it's changed, he uses KDE. Dunno specifics, though.

smoooth103: to your second, yeah - go to the Slackware store, report bugs and provide fixes, develop add-on software, tell others about it in an appealing way!

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You maintain Slackware but how? How does it work? You sit at your computer at the start of the day and what?

Do Robbie, Eric and others send you updated packages to merge? I can see that you would maybe know about a stable upgrade for something like apache but there are many thousands of packages in Slackware spread across different arches, different desktop environments. How do you track and test them all and decide when an upgraded/updated package is worthy of inclusion? How do you even keep track of them all? Many may not even have anyone maintaining them anymore, how would you know?

What environment do you have for testing an upgraded package? A vanilla slackware -current or the latest stable release, or both? In a virtual machine or running live? Do you install say, flash, or is it a totally clean, straight slackware with no extras? Do you test on 32-bit and 64?

Here my questions.

1. Free Software & Open Source community are informally divided into two camps: "radical" camp and "soft" camp. Radical are those who prefer GPL-like licenses of software over BSD-like, GPL over LGPL, GPLv3 over GPLv2, support rewardless projects over commercial one, favour "interests of code" over "interests of developers", and so on(Of course, radical camp IMO cannot be represented better then by mr.Stallman. Soft one - I think mr.Torvalds itself is one of them. IMHO). What camp is favourite for you personally? What camp you favour for Slackware project itself?

2. Are there any plans in near future to upgrade network configuration/initialisation scripts in distribution? I mean in last 5-7 years average configuration of network subsystem of average Slackware user are changed significantly: number of simultaneously present and actively up-ing/down-ing wired interfaces, laptops with both wired & wireless interfaces, slow but still insistent introduction of IPv6 networks. Today Slackware distribution(as of 13.37) is not ready for this by default. Network subsystem can eventually end up in working but unusable state. Sys.admins forced to reinvent the same wheel for each box they install Slackware(which is not good for Slackware distribution) or use so hated 3rd-party network managers which are never respect Slackware itself.

3. Thank for including htop into -current, I always install over fresh installation. Will be ever sbopkg tool included? It very useful tool for newbies (and will not hide it - for mature user too), it would be great to have it shipped out-of-box. And reference somewhere on installation screens will be welcomed by newbies.

This many pages in and no question as to if Mr. Volkerding prefers EMACS of Vi. Folks, we are slipping. Or is that slacking?

Is distcc used when compiling kernels? Do you build them in /usr/src/linux?

How do you decide on what would be best as a module rather than built in when building a kernel?

Did you ever think of moving to Kansas?

@FeyFre Did you see that Alien BOB's work on integrating Network Manager with KDE recently become part of current? This recent change is quite relevant to your second question.

1)What are his thoughts on building a kernel as root, esp. considering that Greg GH advises building as normal user?
2)What does he think about the panic that seems to ensue when his site goes down?
3)Does he ever think about drawing in the Slackware user community to support the project-if so, what are his thoughts on this?

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Building packages is pretty much a standardized process using Slackbuild scripts. Have you ever thought of an option to let the user choose building (part of) the distribution from source? An initrd on the installation disk that builds the complete system from source - how cool is that?

Question:

Gnome has been removed from Slackware because it was a real hassle to package. On the other hand, KDE are getting bigger and more complicated, with a lot of new dependencies, and are leaving the KISS area which is a characteristic of Slackware. Are you considering to drop it and/or switch to another lightweight desktop environment? For instance, e17 is just around the corner, with the base libraries already rock stable and a UNIX philosophy. Could Enlightenment comes back into Slackware?

+1 for this question

@ruario, first of all, I'm not one of those who uses KDE everyday(yes I can install to try, but eventually I shall remove it). XFCE is my default DE/WM by default on most boxes(on other - twm). But most of my boxes have not installed X-related stuff at all. So KDE dependent solution is not solution at all.