I agree that the CD/DVD medium is outdated. My next machine will undoubtedly not include a DVD tray. I like the idea of Slackware selling only USB mediums, whether it be USB sticks, or pre-installed USB hard disks. This will allow Pat and team to stop worrying about the size of Slackware images, and to allow them to add the software they envision to be apart of the Slackware distribution. Great idea to all those who mentioned it.

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I started with Slack some 20+ years ago, mainly for web servers.
I'm now running 14.2 with MATE 1.16 from SlackBuilds(?). Seems light enough and stable to me.
I, too, would like to see a donation page.

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I just wanted to point out that any funding site should be oriented to the dev himself and not to Slackware (ideally, not using that word except perhaps in passing to say what dev does) The site/funding should be set up for dev personally. The idea is to support dev personally so he can continue work ob the project. There's a fine distinction that could be made.

We are trying to avoid legal fees by giving the other party in that contract a reason to sue. They could claim rights to those funds if they are to support dev's project directly. IANAL but if the money is just to support dev personally in gratitude for being such a great guy, that's one thing. If the money is to support the project (...officially....) then they could come back and try to recover that 60% +.

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I believe that Slackware, Inc. is owned by Patrick Volkerding in his own name only, and that web-shop (and company behind it) is a different and separate entity which has rights only over its own sales.

But more precise can explain our BDFL.

Hi Pat, I guess I should ignore the Brentwood P.O. Box to send money? You can Private Message your postal address to me here and I will send a small check from California right now, and then once every month when my income arrives. Computing would be a real bummer for me without Slackware, I can't imagine not paying for it either. You can spam my email address too if you'd rather, it is the same one the store has, hasn't changed since 1995.

I thought the suggestion about SPI was helpful, and I always admired Clem the MintLinux guy, with his monthly donation reports and sponsor levels and such. I'd rather just send you a regular check, without third or fourth party fees.

I was just in the store this morning to give you $25 anniversary donation with a tee shirt order, but I couldn't find the button so I quit out. Then I came here and read this thread and your post, and I guess I should cancel my DVD subscription too? Is there any point keeping it? What about the merchandise? I liked the tee shirts and polos.

Thanks Pat, as a Slackware subscriber I don't care so much when 15 gets released, and the medium doesn't really matter either. I'm happy if you're happy. Make it so.

Maybe he would be in legal trouble to tell you to get out. I don't know about it. But I quit...

Please set up a place to send my subscription fee to in the future...

Best regards

Franz

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how about CafePress:

https://www.cafepress.com/volkerdi

do the incomes from here go directly to Pat? If so, why not just move all the store there and put a link on slackware.com?

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Like everyone else, I would like to make a donation and hope you could setup PayPal account to accept donation.
I've used PayPal for Slackware in the past.
If you choose another method, I hope I can use it also from Romania.
You should quickly find a secure solution to make payments!

Hmm, not very good though, is it:

https://www.cafepress.com/p/help-cre...-earning-money

These places are making an absolutely killing. Compare this to, say, Bandcamp, where the site gets only 15% of the proceeds. Apart from a credit card processing fee, the rest goes to the musician. For example, from my Bandcamp:

Some of these places are charging an arm and a leg though, it's madness.

(Kind of a bonkers idea, but if anyone wants to make some cool geeky music and give the proceeds to Pat and sell shirts as merch, that could work)

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If it's a GTK+ based DE then it can be a drop in replacement for KDE. I can say that MATE is a very stable DE and it along with cinnamon can be riced just as well as XFCE can.

Another option is a kickstarter which provides funding for an xfce slackware and support for that Slackware release. Then have stretch goals for other things like PAM and Plasma 5.

Has anyone run an online business and want to share their expertise?

The worst case scenario is that Patrick takes a job offer and the Slackware team figures out how to move forward given this new reality. If the job offer provides good money I think he should consider this at least temporarily and see how Slackware funding goes. He and his family needs a stable income that is way above poverty level.

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Slackware is my base distro (I hop a lot), so I'm up for a donation. I haven't looked into anything like Patreon, but it seems to me that a continuing donation would be best so you don't have to put it out there as often. Also, IAMAL, but it would seem you could do a Patreon for you personally without crossing the streams with the business.

As for DEs. I'm a KDE fan, but I've never been a user. XFCE is as heavy as I can go even on my new machines. So I think LXQT would be a good QT replacement for KDE. Or Lumina, since Slackware already has Fluxbox. That said, it might be hard to remain relevant with neither of the big two DEs in the base install. And there seems to be a significant anti-systemd contingent that Slackware appeal to.

Some free things are worth a lot of money. Slackware is one of them. Get something set up, Pat. I'll gladly donate.

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Been selling with my own store for about 18 years, running 5 Slackware boxes
A $20 per month Linode works very good. PCI compliance is not difficult with Slackware either.
A good processor takes less than 3 - 4%

This might be a good idea.

If Pat takes care of the "L" series dependencies for Plasma 5 then I I have no problem to keep releasing new Plasma 5 packages from my own 'ktown' repository. I'd rather see a stable core OS than one that falls apart at the seams (or whose content is getting stale) just because Slackware is a one-man show. At the moment I am holding back on new Plasma5 releases because of the decisions I need Pat to make.

Getting rid of KDE4 and instead adding LXQT or Lumina instead of Plasma5 will still give people a nice Qt5 based desktop out of the box. Without Plasma5, Slackware will of course say good bye to some good applications like K3b, Okular, Konqueror.

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