Roadmap and goals for next Slackware
 

Hello.

I'd want to know if there are any known goals the Slackware team wants to implement for the next version of Slackware. They are taking a lot of time for releasing the next version and there is enough activity in the changelogs to guess they are up to something.

So, are there stated goals they want to achieve with next Slackware? The inclussion of certain difficult software of the replacement of certain core component?

If they were publicly stated, you would already know. But usually the major changes are announced on the occasion of a new release, as e.g. here, not before.

Well, (and this is just a guess) reasons for that would possibly include that late 2013 to late 2014 was a really unusual time in the Linux ecosystem. There wasn't much new stuff upstream for the team to work on, but there was a deluge of security stuff that surely must have stretched the team's work/life balance. In a weak sense, you can see Slackware's "lost album" of 2014 released as "singles" in 14.1's patches directory.

I would assume that has already happened. "Difficult" software is integrated early in the cycle. If you don't see something now, it probably won't be in 14.2. It seems that gcc-5 and kde5 probably won't be in 14.2... and you can put systemd on the "not in 14.2" list, if that's what you're worried about.

Member response
 

Hi,
If you read the announcements for 14.1 and other past releases that seem to be related to the same thing proven, stability & reliability. From ANNOUNCE.14_1
Oldest & greatest active, stable and reliable Gnu/Linux available, Slackware is! Great support from the team & community.
Have fun & enjoy!
:hattip:

With all due respect to the Slackware Team and the work they have done to bring us the best Linux distribution available.....

We have had this discussion before,

https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ok-4175538666/

and as I said then, IMHO, communication with your user base is not only a good idea, but necessary.

https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ml#post5348414

However, the powers that be do not agree and act as if they are working on a national security project.
I once asked if we would ever see a 64-bit version of Slackware in the "then" near future, and the answer was, no. I can't remember if it wasn't two weeks or two months later, Slackware64 was announced.
This isn't the NSA or Cooking Institute of America, it is Open Source software. The thought of corporate/distribution espionage makes me laugh out loud. :D
In regards to KDE-5, it is the ugliest desktop to be produced in the 30 years since I bought my first personal computer. I would rather go back to using Quarterdeck's DESQview. Yes, really.
:)

I think the lesson you had to learn is never to ask what's coming to a future release of Slackware. That is a question which will never get an answer.
One of the reasons for Slackware being rock stable and dependable is the fact that it's only a small team that works on its development and only one person who decides which of the team's sub projects or updates is going to be added to the distro. This has nothing to do with espionage.

If we were to listen to every demand then there would not be any progression at all. You do not realize the amount of work that goes into maintaining a distro with a small team. Every minute spent on debating with Slackware users is not spent on developing the distro. You may think that these discussions are fruitful but in reality, most of them are not. They are repititions and rehashes of previous fruitless discussions.
Half the userbase demands PAM, the other half pukes on hearing the word mentioned. Half the userbase thinks that Slackware-current should be carrying the latest versions of any package, the other half is happy to let the team decide if a piece of Slackware needs to be updated. Half the userbase wants "build Slackware from scratch" features, the other half is happy with the fact that packages don't get rebuilt UNLESS they are broken even when the sources stopped being compilable.

I can go on, but it should be clear: this distro is built on open source software, but that does not require that the development should be open to view and comment on. If you demand that, then Slackware might not be for you. That too, is the answer you've been given multiple times.
I would disagree here. Your bias is caused by the flattened systray and menu icons? Everything evolves, that includes people's view of desktop usability and user interface design. It is not just the Plasma 5 desktop which changed. But anyway, icon themes are available that allow you to customize your desktop if you prefer the look&feel of KDE4.
I hated the look of KDE 3, but that did not keep me from using it. I like how KDE 4 looks more than I like Plasma 5 but that does not stop me from using that, either.

Keep in mind, there will not be anymore updates for KDE 4 - Slackware-current has already applied every KDE 4 update there is. A future release of Slackware will likely migrate to Plasma 5. My pre-release work in my 'ktown' repository is meant to ensure very early on that the requirements for running Plasma 5 are not going to diverge so far from what is acceptable to us that it becomes impossible to integrate it into Slackware. Hence my regular grumpy posts to the KDE developer mailing lists on occasions when they smoked to much bad weed.

A good response, overall. However, I disagree with the above statement. I'm not saying the "...development should be open..." as in disclosing exactly what is going on behind the curtains, but every now and then a general statement from "the management" goes a long ways towards keeping the users from getting restless. The example in the second link in my first post in this thread is exactly what I'm talking about. More than good leadership, it is just good old fashion commonsense.

Over the twenty years I've been using Slackware I do, now and then, think it is time to climb down out of the tree house and find a professionally managed distribution, and I do try one for a while, but end up coming back to Slackware for all the usual reasons.

As to, ugh :) , KDE-5, well, I am sure they are doing great things under the hood, and IF the option does exist to change its outward appearance, I'll give it another go sometime down the road.

I can not speak for Pat of course, but I doubt he considers himself a "leader". If you look back at 20+ years of Slackware development, you must have noticed that the number of times he really spoke out can be counted on the fingers of your two hands.
I try to keep people informed for as much as I can and should, on my blog. That'll be it. But there will never be answers about Slackware's long term plans. The short term plans, well you can see them unfold in the slackware-current ChangeLog.txt.

And glad about that.

Who knows what happens between now and the one or two years it will take Slackware to absorb Plasma 5 ;-)

I understand and like the fact that Slackware is a small team distribution, and not a paperwork mess like others. However, I am with cwizardone in a point: Communication is an extremely important thing when it comes to keeping your reputation and your userbase. I don't mean getting involved in social media senseless chit-chat or forum action, but just an announce every now and then for letting people know what is going on.

Most gossip about the demise of Slackware we see around would be killed on the spot if there was an official announce stating what are the plans of the Slackware team, even in very general terms.

I have had IT professionals come and ask me if Slackware was still alive, due to the fact they had checked the official announce and found it very old. I had to point to the changelog to them.

It is not an engineering problem, but a marketing problem. Slackware is not a very conventional firm, but I guess reputation still maters.

I am going to mark this thread as solved. Thank you for the answers. And thanks for the members of the Slackware team and SlackBuilds team for making this ecosystem so useful.

And yet the greatest of leaders are those who see themselves not as leaders, but are seen by everyone else as leaders.

And that what makes Patrick "The Grand Poobah of Awesomesauceness of all that is Slackware".

"...reputation still matters..."

Exactly! That says it all!

let's see it positive, the long time to the new release gives people possibilities to test other distros, and than come back or not.
the only thing that I have some doubts about the 'never change anything as long ...' is that at some time it might seem that it is impossible to change for some.
PAM discussion, just because, not technical facts for why not include it, opinion based
no boostrap possibility for no other reason that just because it is like it is, based on technical arguments that can never be proven to be correct.
and all the 'super stable' arguments, they are nice but compared to what, others are also stable
at the end time will show what is correct because users decide what they want and what they chose, and if Slackware has a stable or even increasing user base than there is of course no need to change anything.

Hi,

Let's make the things a bit more technical. Maybe somebody that insists on having more information and a roadmap could draw the technical details on how it should be done?

I mean, if you'd like to have the roadmap, draw the skeleton of what should be included there.
If you want to see more information, write exactly what kind of information you need.
And I don't mean that you toss-in some ideas here on the forum. Try to give the complete specs on what you really want.

There is not a bit of offense here. I for once also wanted to have the latest software whenever possible. I was compiling it on my own, I was tweaking the kernel to the deepest possible level. Now I don't do that any more with a few exceptions. I understand perfectly that somebody might want to have it like that, but this somebody has to also understand that somebody else might want it the way it is now.

There are two users of Slackware at my home. One is a regular user that requires something more like an office suite of software, the other is power user, that needs tools to develop the software, run virtual machines and so on. Both of the users are using Slackware 14.1 + SBo + alien et. al. Both the users are happy that their system works as expected and don't have demands for something new (except for the natural evolution of software and the benefits it brings, e.g. ease of use).

My conclusion is that:
give the technical details for what you want. Don't say "I want a car", say "I want this brand, this color, this equipment, this maximal fuel consumption, etc.".

--
Best regards,
Andrzej Telszewski

How it should be done would be to the publisher of the plan to decide.

From the reputation point of view, something like: "We hope to achieve goal X and Y (before date X / next release)" would be good enough. At least in my opinion.

Notice this is not necessarily about software versions. I can keep using dusty old software forever as long as there is security support or I can provide it somehow.

Hi,

I personally don't see (I'm insisting on being technical) how this could be achieved and actually what should be achieved.
If you say that Slackware team should choose something, then you're not specific and you're not giving technical details.
If you leave it like that, then the team decides for you and their decision is to have the ChangeLog and once per X year announcement on new release.

Give them the plan, maybe they would catch up with it.

But still, for me it's hard to judge, because I'm perfectly fine with the way it's now and I actually don't have an idea what would you like to see or how this should be made.

Unfortunately, the only roadmap I could think of would have the following format:
1. We don't plan to include PAM, unless we're forced too.
2. We don't plan to include systemd, unless we're forced too.
3. We don't plan to include PulseAudio, unless we're forced too.
4. We plan to include KDE5, when it's ready.
5. We do/don't plan to include XXX, when/unless YYY.

And still I think it does not bring too much to the community.

--
Best regards,
Andrzej Telszewski