S03E39 - David Cantrell reminisces about his experience working for Slackware in the early 2000s

David Cantrell worked in the Slackware core team between 1999-2001, created the Slackware logo, co-developed the web site, the Slackware Linux Essentials book, ported Slackware to the SPARC architecture, developed the first Slackware automatic update tool and introduced a number of other core packages into the distribution.

In this discussion, David delves into his journey of discovering Linux and his experience working for Slackware. He offers valuable insights into the early days of the Linux ecosystem, a time when the platform was gradually gaining recognition and acceptance in the tech community. Through his perspective, we gain a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities that characterised this formative period in Linux's history.

So Slackware devs found themselves at Red Hat... working next to Lennart Poettering?

nice!

Many thank, drmozes, for this huge chunk of Slackware history

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cool~
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SlackwareCN: The Slackware Linux CN Community
slackwareCN：https://github.com/slackwarecn
slackwareCN：http://www.slackwarecn.cn
slackwareloong doc ：https://github.com/slackwarecn/slackbook_cn_loongarch64
slackwareloong web doc : https://slackwarecn.gitbook.io/slackbook_cn_loongarch64

David thoroughly enjoyed his time at Slackware and remains eager to answer any questions from the community.
While there were many topics we could have delved into, unfortunately, due to time constraints, we had to conclude the episode (and 2 hours was already quite an epic episode!).

David and I have also discussed OS development (as that's David's speciality for the last 30 years, and is a principal software engineer in Red Hat, working on the RHEL and Fedora OS) and the possibility of talking through that. I'm not sure what shape that'd take or whether anybody'd be interested in it (apart from me ;-) ).

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First draft of history I suppose. Used to be newspapers, now its YouTube.

That era when Linux based OSes became important rivals to UNIX and Windows servers. There is a book about 2001-ish to 2011-ish Debian (Coding Freedom by Gabriella Coleman), the author's interest was in the sociological aspects of the Debian social contract and GPL and all. UNIX is documented in minute detail including various oral history projects, code repositories and PDP-11 emulators!

So room for Redhat history and a more technical approach? Why not?

It was a fascinating interview about the period right around the time I started using Slackware; 7.1 was my first as a 'daily driver anyway'.

David's comments about how Patrick wanted to continue but without paying anyone were interesting. Which I totally understand Pat obviously did not have the money but at least in 2000 Slackware sure looked like it could have become a significant business at least an also ran next to Red Hat. With all the problems of the store and keeping the website up in mind I totally get he did not have the personal time resources to maintain the distro and do all the marketing and 'distributing' stuff.

I would be curious to hear from him if other options like trying to get business loans or anything as Slackware Inc. so he could have retained a staff? Patrick seems to have pivoted rather immediately to very conservative bunker approach to running the business. I can sort of understand that too with how the wind appeared to be blowing with respect to SUSE and some other other smaller commercial distributions at the time. I think it would be really interesting to hear from him about his thoughts and plans around that time.

Maybe you could convince him to do the show?

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My little business experience tells me getting a loan to keep paying your workers is a terrible idea. Especially in 2000.

It would not be wrong to suggest the only way to know to move forward on Slackware would be to go without pay until money shows up again. I doubt that proposal is convincing to most anyone though. I think it makes sense the 3 went their separate ways. I'd like to think they wanted to help, but practicality is the better option.

I am not saying Pat made the wrong call the3dfxdude, I am just genuinely curious about what he did or did not explore at the time and how he made those decisions.

My own experience is that its pretty common for start ups to use operating loans for payroll. This was a time when the .COM boom was still running, Slackware was a name with some intellectual property value attached to it, the IP distro its tools etc would have have some substantial commercial value at the time; my instinct is some credit could have been secured against that.

So I am curious was Slackware shopped to lenders or venture capital guys? How did those conversions go? Was there a search for another benevolent corporate parent like VA Linux Systems, etc?

None of it really matters now of course other than idle curiosity but 1998-2001 was a really really interesting time where there was a lot of 'shake out' in tech that has shaped the market ever after and Slackware truly is part of that story even if it has been largely forgotten by the tech and financial press in the interim. I think it would be worth capturing that part of the story if Pat would be willing to share.

In the podcast, it was clear that after walnut creek / BSDi under Wind River discontinued their Linux support in April 2001, this was at the time many places were going bust. Without digging in more on finances, you can tell in the story, that there wasn't money there. Cantrell kind of went the route of, if I wasn't going to find a paying job, finishing a degree was a priority. This was not a time for startups -- this was the dot com crash. VA systems went bust.

This is a pretty good quote at the time:
https://web.archive.org/web/20140318...1041701420NWSL

There was probably not enough money until Slackware 8.0 came out, which happened three months later. Pat got Slackware Inc out of it, but probably not enough prep time to make the transition smoother.

Edit:
Here Pat tells a little more to answer your question.
https://www.theage.com.au/technology...04-gdfp05.html

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Wow, a quote from Pat about David, 21 years ago. And you don't have to go to the library to read it; the Internet is forever.

Thanks that is really interesting article. One I probably read 20 years ago and forgot all about.

Thanks for that - I was unaware of the book. I've read most of it now and the individual stories and perspectives largely echo my own and many of the people I know who've been involved in this from that time period.

I'm glad people liked the interview - I enjoyed doing it :-)

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Any chance of interviewing other Slackware people like Vincent Batts or Alien Bob?

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