[SOLVED] Donating to Slackware

vino29 · 07-23-2018, 08:50 PM

Luckily, I haven't given the store any business as I wasn't able to afford it. Now that I can, I'm also very happy to support Pat and Slackware once the channel to do so is in place.

Xsane · 07-23-2018, 09:34 PM

Pat, your situation is unimaginable and unacceptable; we can fix this and need
to do so immediately. You work hard and earn every cent that is payed in the
name of Slackware. Along with the recent attention from the 25th anniversary
this information needs to go out to the wider audience. What about the Linux
Foundation? Could they show some support for the worlds oldest distro?

Quote:

Originally Posted by upnort

* PayPal should work.

That seems like a useful choice. Personally, with the current situation I'd
rather not have any 3rd party. I want my sawbucks directly in the man's hand.

Quote:

Originally Posted by upnort

* Rent a local P.O. box.

There already is a publicly listed PO Box. I'm not going to spill it. That is
Pat's decision to make.

Pat, if that PO Box is secure and under your control I am ready to send you
payment for Slackware; right now!

Richard Cranium · 07-23-2018, 09:47 PM

Dafuq?

Well, the subscription will only kick in if Mr. Volkerding provides images for that store to create them, correct? (If not correct, I'll jump on the "stop subscription" bandwagon as well.)

IIRC, the cost for the DVD was $60. That's $5/month or $1.25 a week. I'm willing to spend that on a annual basis independent of a release or not. (OK, I'd expect an eventual release; come on.)

I'm also a forgetful lazy *bleep*; I'd like to set something up that I don't have to monitor closely.

Figure out how to set up ways we can pay you and pin the thread telling us how to do so here (I assume LQ isn't against that sort of thing).

EDIT: WOW. Old man memory kicking in. $39.95 for the DVD subscription? (Actually hit the store page.) I'm willing to pay $60 a year to support you. That would at least be a constant revenue flow.

abga · 07-23-2018, 10:53 PM

I've been using Slackware for my private needs since 1996 (Slackware 3.0 - first release on CD-ROM) and my first business-grade Slackware server was based on 3.6. My little contribution ever since was to buy the official CD/DVD on every official release through some relatives I have in the States.
Reading Patrick's post I felt a little confused about why it's all running through intermediaries and sorry about the actual (resulted) situation, which is not something one wouldn't expect - business as usual.
Given the nature of the Slackware project and the resource(s) that stays at its core, I found all I had to suggest myself in keithpeter's post (pointless to repeat/rewrite):
https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ml#post5882782

solarfields · 07-23-2018, 11:50 PM

dear Pat,

as others have already said, please provide us with a PayPal (or bank?) account to which we can donate directly to you. I feel like an idiot for thinking the (however modest) donations I made "to the Slackware project" (as put on the store) go straight to you and your family.

mralk3 · 07-24-2018, 12:18 AM

I cancelled my DVD subscription just now too. I am quite agnry with these store owners for being so shady. I purchased two T-Shirts last week. Last year I bought a few other things thinking it was for the Pat V. cause. Oh well. I too will be following this thread closely to find out where I can send my money next to support Slackware development. I probably will not be purchasing a physical media subscription again. I prefer to donate cash directly to the man himself.

hitest · 07-24-2018, 12:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mralk3

I prefer to donate cash directly to the man himself.

Exactly! The man should get paid for all of the work he does for us!

11thhour · 07-24-2018, 12:31 AM

Dear Pat,

I will be cancelling my DVD subscription as well. Please post what you decide to go with Patreon/Paypal/etc. and you will have a monthly donation from me.

Thanks for all your work over the years.

petslack · 07-24-2018, 12:56 AM

Hi Pat,

I really feel so sorry regarding this situation but as you can see, I think everybody here is willing to help you out.
Did you ever consider using a crypto-wallet? I think it could be a fast and easy way...

My best wishes for you and your family! Keep strong man!

giomat · 07-24-2018, 01:20 AM

It's about time that I pay back some of the peace of mind you gave me with your work.
Let us know a suitable donation medium whenever you find it.
All the best wishes.

ponce · 07-24-2018, 01:42 AM

just removed my subscription too.
I would be ok with a monthly donation in whatever place you feel best, I really don't mind the unavailability of the dvd.
I hope things will get better soon: FWIW, count on my support (for whatever I could do)!

a4z · 07-24-2018, 02:01 AM

so the donation I sent to the 25th birthday did not reach Pat?
this sounds terrible!

about patreon, this is an option, but please do not make it the only option.
patreon charges tax for payments (donations), here 25%.
also, the login options are suboptimal for me because I have to use multiple mobiles, and for login 2 factor exists only via SMS (recently they removed authentication app)

so consider something like this:
https://www.bountysource.com/
as an additional option, or aver patreon
to me it seems bounty source is good, there are a lot of OS projects there. I it to donate and it should be possible to get references for it

for a PayPal donation button you need nothing, just a mail address and a bank account attached to PayPal.

going away from physical media sounds good, CD/DVDs are out of date and just a pollution, USB branded sticks would be better.
No idea if you are allowed to do this and I hope there is no naming clash, but if the store played wrong, it should be possible to get rid of it.

Unfortunately, and this is also something I learned in my career, it is not enough to be good in tech, you need also know how to run a business, otherwise others will run it for you. This means employment, or real troubles.
So being good in tech and being ones own boss means, learn the economic part, and the law to run a company.

Good luck Pat!
I think you will master this challenge and create something new that will be beneficial for you and for Slackware for the next part of you career journey.

Rootsudo · 07-24-2018, 02:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by volkerdi

I told them to take it down or I'd suspend the DNS for the store.

I've been mulling over exactly how to tell you all this, and I guess this is as good a place as any. The store has been ripping me off horribly, and I'm very nearly broke. I have no evidence that they've ever done anything with donations besides line their own pockets. I've not been paid any money by them in two years. That was upon the 14.2 release (and followed another long period of time with no income). The 14.2 release generated nearly $100K in revenue. The store gave me $15K, and later said that I was "overpaid".

When I agreed to set up the store, it was structured as a company where they owned 60%, and my wife and I owned 40%. I had not yet escaped California and would have quickly gone broke there with a house underwater had I not taken the deal. And 60% seemed fair, since the idea was that the company would be providing health insurance, paying for the production of the goods, and handling shipping and related customer service. And when my daughter was born and needed surgery and continuing medical attention I could hardly jeopardize our insurance in the days before the ACA. I was between a rock and a hard place like many residents of the US. Since then, the store has ceased to provide any benefits, and shouldn't even be getting a 50/50 split in my opinion, much less looting the coffers for 81+% (anything they want to spend money on is an expense, apparently, while any expenses I have to support the actual project come out of the peanuts they toss me). I only found out about how bad it really was last year when I finally managed to get some numbers out of them. I thought the sales were just that bad, and was really rather depressed about it. Another side note - the ownership of the 60% portion of the store changed hands behind my back. Nobody thought they needed to tell me about this. At that point I'd say things got considerably worse for me.

Still not sure how to move forward, but I have some hope that the community might think that my work is and has been worth supporting. If at all possible I'd like to get away from replicating physical media which seems to be a lost cause. T-shirts? Well, maybe, but I don't see that providing a reasonable income either. I'm wondering how Patreon would do. It would at least be better than nothing, which is where I am now.

Through all of this I have continued to work hard towards getting Slackware 15.0 released because I believe it will be by far the best release we've ever had, and because I'm dedicated to my work and the community that uses it. I've never really been in this for the money. At any given juncture (including now) I've had numerous opportunities that would support me and my family far better and would provide us with the things that we need rather desperately. I mean, I'm sitting here in a house with a giant hole in the roof, a broken door sealed with duct tape, and a failed air conditioning condenser that I can't afford to fix, my wife has been driving on a spare tire for weeks, my teeth need serious attention again, and I only just got a machine here with UEFI for the first time (bought a used machine... really out of my budget but it had to be done).

I'm open to suggestions at this point. As far as Slackware 15.0 goes, I've been testing PAM and Kerberos here and have given quite some thought to trying to get them merged (or at least in /testing) so that we can have proper support for Active Directory and NFS. Plasma 5 has been a consideration as well, although frankly it's grown much larger than GNOME was back when I decided that should be spun off for third party maintenance. If that's going in, we really need to analyze which dependencies would not be used outside of Plasma and stick all of those in the KDE series. I'm as tired of the pollution of the L series as the rest of you are.

"I did this 'cause Linux gives me a woody. It doesn't generate revenue."
-- Dave '-ddt->` Taylor, announcing DOOM for Linux

At this point, I'd review your contract and see what exit strategies you can do.

1. Document and post on here and medium.com, especially on hackernoon/hackernews. Both will be great outlets to get your word out, and possibly help get Slackware fully back under your control for some form of net profitization to help your life. Tread carefully if there's an NDA.

2. Donations. Patereon will work, also crypto. Coinbase or a paper wallet. People will donate.

HODL and cash out when you think it's appropriate. I'm sure other people could fit in with other money investment plans, but for donations crypto is truly peer to peer (minus the exchange, which does not have to be involved.) Paypal is also, *okay* but they are stringy. You can also setup your own payment credit card processor through square, and setup a simple portal to donate / subscription service.

3. Cancel physical media. It's dead. Reduce that cost immediately - you remove shipping, fulfilment, logistics, returns, and all that hassle.

I think at this point, my points above are probably repeated jumble from everyone else, but.. if read enough times..

.

solarfields · 07-24-2018, 02:28 AM

hmm, make this a sticky thread?

Mechanikx · 07-24-2018, 03:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by volkerdi

I told them to take it down or I'd suspend the DNS for the store.

I've been mulling over exactly how to tell you all this, and I guess this is as good a place as any. The store has been ripping me off horribly, and I'm very nearly broke. I have no evidence that they've ever done anything with donations besides line their own pockets. I've not been paid any money by them in two years. That was upon the 14.2 release (and followed another long period of time with no income). The 14.2 release generated nearly $100K in revenue. The store gave me $15K, and later said that I was "overpaid".

When I agreed to set up the store, it was structured as a company where they owned 60%, and my wife and I owned 40%. I had not yet escaped California and would have quickly gone broke there with a house underwater had I not taken the deal. And 60% seemed fair, since the idea was that the company would be providing health insurance, paying for the production of the goods, and handling shipping and related customer service. And when my daughter was born and needed surgery and continuing medical attention I could hardly jeopardize our insurance in the days before the ACA. I was between a rock and a hard place like many residents of the US. Since then, the store has ceased to provide any benefits, and shouldn't even be getting a 50/50 split in my opinion, much less looting the coffers for 81+% (anything they want to spend money on is an expense, apparently, while any expenses I have to support the actual project come out of the peanuts they toss me). I only found out about how bad it really was last year when I finally managed to get some numbers out of them. I thought the sales were just that bad, and was really rather depressed about it. Another side note - the ownership of the 60% portion of the store changed hands behind my back. Nobody thought they needed to tell me about this. At that point I'd say things got considerably worse for me.

Still not sure how to move forward, but I have some hope that the community might think that my work is and has been worth supporting. If at all possible I'd like to get away from replicating physical media which seems to be a lost cause. T-shirts? Well, maybe, but I don't see that providing a reasonable income either. I'm wondering how Patreon would do. It would at least be better than nothing, which is where I am now.

Through all of this I have continued to work hard towards getting Slackware 15.0 released because I believe it will be by far the best release we've ever had, and because I'm dedicated to my work and the community that uses it. I've never really been in this for the money. At any given juncture (including now) I've had numerous opportunities that would support me and my family far better and would provide us with the things that we need rather desperately. I mean, I'm sitting here in a house with a giant hole in the roof, a broken door sealed with duct tape, and a failed air conditioning condenser that I can't afford to fix, my wife has been driving on a spare tire for weeks, my teeth need serious attention again, and I only just got a machine here with UEFI for the first time (bought a used machine... really out of my budget but it had to be done).

I'm open to suggestions at this point. As far as Slackware 15.0 goes, I've been testing PAM and Kerberos here and have given quite some thought to trying to get them merged (or at least in /testing) so that we can have proper support for Active Directory and NFS. Plasma 5 has been a consideration as well, although frankly it's grown much larger than GNOME was back when I decided that should be spun off for third party maintenance. If that's going in, we really need to analyze which dependencies would not be used outside of Plasma and stick all of those in the KDE series. I'm as tired of the pollution of the L series as the rest of you are.

"I did this 'cause Linux gives me a woody. It doesn't generate revenue."
-- Dave '-ddt->` Taylor, announcing DOOM for Linux

Hi Pat,

I want to tell you how much courage it took to tell us about your situation. Having almost been homeless a couple of times I know how daunting life can be sometimes.

I can honestly say that Slackware has changed my life. I haven't been using it for very long but I feel that my knowledge is increasing exponentially because everytime I sit down with my machine I learn something new. Not just about Slackware but about GNU/Linux, general operating system concepts, my hardware, etc. And that's one of the many reasons I chose your distro: the learning experience. For the last 25 years you have brought us a stable and high quality product and not always under the best of circumstances. Turning down opportunities that would better your life so you could continue your work with Slackware. Your dedication to your work and community is truly inspiring. For these reasons I owe you. So please, whenever you're able, set up a system where your community can show its appreciation.

Best wishes to you and your loved ones.