When Pat gives up Slackware...
 

eventually its going to happen. Patrick Volkerding will be unable or unwilling to continue with Slackware. What do you think will happen when that day comes? Will Slack fork out with Slackware itself abandoned? Taken over by a group that forms to maintain Slackware? abandoned altogether?

Just something I was thinking about. What do you think will happen to Slackware once Pat leaves the scene?

I don't believe there is any public contingency plan in effect, and I doubt one will be made public any time soon. This question has been raised in the past and really the only important points of those discussions are these:

There is no guarantee that Robby/Eric will take over Slackware, seeing as they have their own jobs and it would be a large increased work load.
Anyone else who would like to step up to the plate would obviously be a relative outsider unless another member of the Slackware team would like to step up.
Any distribution with a non-Pat maintainer should in my opinion remain as a fork of Slackware since it ceases to be in its original form.

If you're planning on setting up a large server farm with Slackware you have a legitimate concern that one day support may drop out. At this point in time it appears that Pat and the Slackware team have no immediate plans on stopping (though of course that's conjecture on my part). There isn't really a point of bringing this discussion up again (search for the other threads) since it is very unlikely that any new information will spring forth and the situation remains (and will remain) the same for some time to come.

If he gives up slackware it will end up like a ubuntu but much more stable.

IMHO, totally true for any distribution, if you are planning on using it for 10 years or more. Even a monster like Debian can be eclipsed by some incompatible fork, simply because the latter is a better implementation of the same philosophy. Shit happens. This is just one of many reasons why everyone who is not criminally insane is building their infrastructure on GNU/Linux or *BSD: the main contingency plan is dead-simple. Leaving Windows for anything is like pulling teeth without drugs; not surprising, given that lock-in is a major design goal. The brightest minds at Microsoft spent years figuring out how to make the transition a real pain to implement and impossible to plan for. Going from a Free OS to another Free OS is more like eating an ice-cream cake. Optimally, only admins will even notice the change.

I wish Pat many many long years of SLACK :jawa:, and I certainly hope that someone at least as benign and competent will continue the work when and if Pat steps down. Personally, I am confident that someone will: I am willing to bet that Slackware will go strong for at least another 10 years regardless of Pat's situation. But even if I end up losing my money, choosing Slackware today should be done on the strengths of the OS today (short term support: check!), and if one is to plan long-term, one should write up a transition plan for any OS, no matter how good-looking.

No more Slackware? OMG! I might have to go back to MS Windows. *must CONTROL suicidal thoughts*

No reason to jump! Hold it!

If and when Pat decides to leave, it's not that time right now. And even if it were, how does it affect your current installation? :-)

Anyway,
[quote]IMHO, totally true for any distribution, if you are planning on using it for 10 years or more. Even a monster like Debian can be eclipsed by some incompatible fork, simply because the latter is a better implementation of the same philosophy. Shit happens. [quote]
I follow you here ;-)

You loose me here...
On the infra side of things, leaving Windows is -generally speaking- a piece of cake; It's at the front-end that people will notice differences and thus are scared and thus do not want it but rather keep their souls sold to a company in Redmond.

What will happen if the sun will not shine anymore?

People, stop flooding. I am more than 10 years with Slackware and always hear people are saying that Slackware is almost dead. It is simply not true and people just want to talk about anything. It is still (and always was) the best distribution I ever tried. Mods, please close this thread.

If and when Pat gives up Slackware...?

I would have to go back to Windows and life would be like this ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzL8secQBkA

Bottom line, there is no Slackware without Pat.

Could be any number of things happen.

1) Slackware is a commercial concern. When Pat retires he might choose to sell the business as an ongoing consideration to someone, and who knows what direction they may choose to take it.

2) One of the many dependent distros may be forced to mature into a self-sustaining project and carry on the good work.

3) All the die-hard LQ Slackers band together to form a community fork, perhaps allied with slackbuilds.org in some way.

4) Those with the skills necessary have the source tree and could take thier systems under their own wing, LFS style.

plus loads of other possible scenarios.....


Besides, Linux and the UNIX model may be completely obsolete in 20 years time anyway and everyone will be walking around saying "Google: it's got what plants crave"

Personally, I think it's better not to think too much into this, and simply do what seems right at the time. I'm sure there are people here who will take over if something happens, and hopefully nothing will happen.

If this were a conditional expression for "if" or "?:" in C, any decent compiler would just omit both the conditional expression and the block for the true condition and emit no code for those. If there is a false condition block, it would be compiled in line.

OMG ... i wonder that will be a fork ....
Unless something could happen ... or the worst and horrible nightmare could became true, that M$ could buy Slackware ...
OMG ... OMG ... i don't want to think of that ....

Yeah... that would be bad, huh? Slackdows or WinSlack? I don't like the sound of either. ;)

I hope it's a very distant future, nevertheless sooner or later it's going to happen.
For now though, let's not think about it. A more pressing issue is the question of 13.2 release.

I like this. By the time it happens, I'll be a Slackware guru and will be able to contribute. I don't suppose it'll happen this century.
With each day you use Slackware, you get one day younger.

So... that makes me roughly half my chronological age... I think.

---------- Post added 02-23-11 at 11:20 PM ----------

Oh, I certainly hope not!

I couldn't agree more. I don't really see the point of this topic and I find it rather offensive and disrespectful. Just my :twocents:.

And, what's gonna happen when Chuck Norris dies? Who's gonna go around kicking ass and taking names then? What will we do?

Simple

upgradepkg pat-2.0-ihuman-1.txz

No disrespect intended - more a reflection of how seriously I take this thread. I mean, the point's a valid one, but I don't see much value in speculating about it right now.

Hopefully, by the time Pat gives up on Slackware, Linux will be as old fashioned as CP/M.

There could be a "Slackware Social contract". Pat could set the rules of that contract.
For example:
1)Slackware will always be 100% free
2)Vanilla Packages
3)Slackware is ready when it's ready.
And so on....
Anyway, i am sure that Pat knows better than us.
And until that day, lets all enjoy Slackware;)

There are more important things to worry about than this. :eek:

I just don't wanna think about it. :(

If the time comes then and only then will I start to think about it. :hattip:

So...you want the social Slackware to have different rules than the current one, then? (Where did this 100% free Slackware myth come into existence?)

Good question, I second it. Slackware is not Debian. Slackware is designed to be useful, Debian is designed to be 100% free. That's why I use Slackware.

gargamel

Chuck Norris die? Be real. That's never gonna' happen! ;)

This post should not be interpreted as a suggestion to modify Slackware in any way, either now or in the future; I am only expressing my own belief that using non-Free software for serious work is asking for trouble.

I think xspartan was giving a hypothetical example of a future social contract, not describing current design goals. And IMHO, it would be very nice if Slackware became 100% Free while preserving all of its other virtues. I understand that the current process is dictated by things like performance, security, KISS, and the resources of the Slackware team. Making the distribution Free would take a lot of additional work while providing very little practical benefit, Slackware being 99.99% Free as it is. Some will also say, the performance would suffer if binary blobs were purged from the Linux kernel (my reply is, the tiny performance gain is worthless compared to the utter loss of security). But I cannot think of anything in the Slackware philosophy that would contradict or be in a direct trade-off relationship with freedoms 0-3, and I cannot think of a good reason to use non-Free software/hardware for serious work, so xspartan's example does not sound out of place to me.

You get your hardware for free?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_hardware And I am not saying that going 100% Free in hardware is practical today, or even possible for things like desktop. Only that nothing about it contradicts goals such as performance and compatibility, which includes "it just works" factor.

Chuk Norris dies?
 

Chuck Norris doesn't die. The universe will die when Chuck Norris kicks it into oblivion. :D

(Sorry - couldn't resist.)

In the Real World(TM) the companies use non-free software with support contracts, and are happy with the results. Oracle, AIX, Mainframe, all non-free stuff that is powering many of the biggest companies on the planet. Do you really think all non-free is just asking for trouble?

I don't care about a 100% free OS. I care about a 100% working OS. I want my webcam, my wireless card and my video card to work as designed, that's why I bought them. Make better use of the same hardware was one of the strongs points of Linux, isn't it? Right now I have to use a VM with Windows in order to use Windows Live Messenger with videoconference, or to have Skype recognize my webcam properly. Considering that with 100% free I will have even less drivers, how is a free Linux helping me be free? I am sorry, but I have a sister living on another continent and I use videoconference software in order to keep in touch with her.

My data is safe as long as I can take it out of the system on which it is stored. So even if it is written in an old version of MS Word, as long as I can start a VM and read the file, it is just fine.

As per security, well, while it is true that one can't tell if the binary blobs are secure or not, one surely can't tell that about the free software either. Bugs are discovered every day in both free and non-free software, and they are fixed or worked-around in more or less the same way.
"But the ati drivers may be sending your bank account details to AMD" you can say. Well, as long as I can tell, the Linux code may be doing the same, as I don't have the will or the knowledge to audit it.


Regards

Agreed. This is why Slackware is always my first choice for an OS. Pat's distro is rock-steady, durable, and it always works.
I'm a Slacker for life. :)

I want to have a 100% working OS too. That's why i would never buy a piece of hardware that it is not Linux compatible. Without non proprietary drivers my old Ati 9700 would not work! Ati no longer supports my old GPU...
Security?The Linux code may be doing the same but the source code is available and thousands of people are checking it for you...Can we do the same with proprietary software?
@qweasd Exactly. I just gave an hypothetical example of a future social contract, not describing current design goals.

PS:Forgive me for my poor english but i am not a native English speaker.

I also prefer using free software over non-free software. This used to be my number one priority when picking a distribution. But then I found Slackware and still I was a bit uncomfortable with having stuff like xv, the Oracle/SUN JRE or the Kernel blobs on my computer. But then I realised that it doesn`t do me any good when I use free software that is not working at all or as good as its non-free counterpart. Especially the JRE or the Kernel blobs don't really have any alternatives with no problems. And in case of the blobs, when you remove them, something will not work anymore.

Pat should go on with his philosophy. Because if I want to have a completely free Slackware I can always go ahead and do it myself. No other distro makes this as easy as Slackware. So what do I need more? A distro that comes 100% free and puts me into fixed borders? Or maybe a distro which is 9X% free and lets me work with it the way I want?

I agree. But if you have a laptop, or not so much money to spend and want to go with the cheap options, sometimes you can't choose all the components. As per ATI support, I have the same problem, my Radeon Xpress 200 is only supported by the free driver.
No, of course I can't say the same. But in large codebases, bugs are hard to detect. And there is always the chance of maliciousness at some point in the development or distribution of software, maybe not so much with Linux with its big development community, but what about other projects with less visibility?
In the end I believe it is always a matter of trust in the source of your software. But I admit that I am more confident compiling an unknown program from source than installing some unknown freeware in Windows.
Me neither, so I apologize as well haha

Regards.

Personally, I'm slowly moving away from Linux kernels anyway as they're increasingly buggy to the point of adversely affecting normal usage of my computers. By the time Pat is ready to retire Slackware, I'll likely be long, long gone anyway. Both Minix 3 and GNU's Hurd look better everyday. Now, I just need an audio infrastructure... I might even PURCHASE QNX due to the unreliability of recent Linux kernels... now that's a sure sign of desperation! ;)