After all, Noah's ark was the work of an amateur, whereas the Titanic was a fully professional project.

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The Titanic was also a victim of it's own hubris.

I'd would have rather been on the Ark. At least it survived. The Titanic... Arrrr... it shares it's bones with Davy Jones.

Noah's ark was used only once, for a short period of time, and then it was abandoned. That's why in my opinion Slackware is much more similar to the ship of Theseus, which remains the same although its parts are continuously being replaced.
Regarding the mentioned paradox, to those who say that it's not the same ship I'd say: releases. Besides, Slackware's still sailing steadily after 22 years, there's a competent crew working on it, headed by a man of rare integrity, hence I wouldn't worry too much about the future. To the OP I'd say: if you like it, then keep using it and supporting it.

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Of course a new release is nearby. I had a word with Pat the other evening and he explained to me the release process of Slackware. I had too many questions but in the end he seemed bothered and I don't know what am I typing but this local beer tastes funny when I started drinking it half an hour ago. Also the weed I imported from Afghanistan was top class I think.
I'll show myself out.

Regards.

Slackware could effectively be more akin to the U.S.S. Constitution if you look at longevity.

Oldest commissioned ship in the world, versus, oldest maintained GNU/Linux distribution in the world.

There have been numerous forks of Slackware in the past; there's nothing to stop someone doing another right now. Slackware will continue for as long as there's interest in the project, regardless of Pat, and that's a good thing--though of course I hope he's at the helm for many, many years to come.

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Every project needs a strong leader (that's why Debian failed). Patrick is the leader of Slackware, so a corporation or LLC wouldn't make a difference. It wouldn't be the same without Patrick anyway.

Debian have had problems of governance but didn't fail. It is alive and well as far as I know. Fortunately for us Slackers as we use a lot of stuff borrowed to Debian every day, be it in genuine Slackware or in software available @ http://slackbuilds.org

I think he means where Debian's Technical Committee made a significant decision that caused a massive fracture of the community which birthed Devuan.

That particular decision was going to be divisive whichever way the outcome went. The Technical Committee were damned if they did, and damned if they didn't.

Anyway, things move on and this week they're all falling out over "Debian Live" instead.

Debian's bureaucracy is alive and kicking. I know why I prefer Slackware.

Cheers,

Niki

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Despise a whole distribution just because you didn't receive a satisfactory answer to a single bug report... Are you serious?

Debian is not managed the same way as Slackware (we all know that, I think) and you prefer the Slackware way. So what?

@all: Please do not be sectarian, and do not turn this thread's topic to a completely useless Debian vs Slackware discussion. Il faut de tout pour faire un monde.

@OP: if your question was answered enough I suggest that you mark this thread as SOLVED.

1) The same guarantee as anyone's future he could live to be 150 or hit by a beer truck this morning.

2) I don't think is a corp but that really doesn't matter.

3) I'm sure he has go-to devs and one of them will just take over.

You could ask these same questions about Torvalds too. Worry when it time to worry there's no sense in adding things to worry about.

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I took my last bug report as an example. I filled a couple other bug reports, of clearly identifiable annoying bugs, which also got exactly nowhere and ended in fruitless controversy or in a clearly stated WONTFIX. Hang out a bit on irc.debian.org (or in the infamous linuxfr.org comment section), and you'll see that the average Debian user "farts higher than his ass", to use a french expression. For the anecdote: one of my clients has been the official maintainer of the French Debian documentation, and he's left Debian just because of that, because according to him, Debian users were "the talibans of the FOSS world". I've been using Debian for years, both personally and on clients' servers and desktops. I know my way around it quite well, but as far as the human side of a distribution is concerned, I'm all for the Slackware way of doing things. I think Debian has a considerable following in France because the French are world champions in bureaucracy, worse than the Eastern Block before 1989.

</rant>

Niki

I see what you mean, Nicolas. However, the few Debian guys with whom I have been and still am in contact are kind and knowledgeable people and Debian has is merits, like the biggest Linux software repository on earth, a versatile and accessible to blind people installer and a clever way to setup the console to name a few.

I exclusively use Slackware but do not hesitate to borrow from Debian anything that comes handy.

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