Of course there are always exceptions....

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Wrong. You were not paying attention to the computer trends and CES for the past 2 years or so. Most end users want "information appliances" that work like a TV or radio. Just turn it on, fire up the app store...etc. Any and all GNU/Linux distros are hobbyist and enthusiast operating systems. Microsoft and Apple spend a lot of money and code to make their OS as brain dead simple as possible (whether they have succeeded is another discussion). Now, that's not to say GNU/Linux can't be useful for the general user, but it will take one hell of a lot more effort (learning curve) than firing up a smart phone, iPad or other tablet. Even Android has been tweaked so that the user needs to know absolutely nothing about the OS.

Your statements indicate you ignorance and arrogance of reality. As such, you are woefully unprepared to teach anyone anything, much less Slackware.

As for my "overwhelming" experience, that I do not claim. However, I did cut my teeth on 8080, 6502 and Z80 programming in assembly a long time ago. I can speak from decades of experience of what new users are capable.

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You're going to have to forgive my 'arrogance of reality' (I'm not sure what that even means), but I think 10 years ago you'd have had a dead-on description of linux communities. Unfortunately today, as these communities have advanced (along with their respective distributions' developements) it's not quite the enthusiasts platform anymore. More and more general users are hopping on the linux boat, and not all of them (I'd likely say 'not most' when referring to more mainstream distributions) are computing enthusiasts.

I recognize this view to be a little dated. I'm sorry. It will happen to my generation of users as well.

At that, I think this discussion has gotten a little more abstract than can be managed, though it does expose the predisposition to hostility that I mentioned. It's just not like that anymore and I think it's time the Slackware community caught up to everyone else.

I'm going to back out here, because my intention was not to argue with people; I just felt it was necessary to respond when someone was asking about what Slackhappy does. If it is your contention that every word of our competitors is some kind of gospel truth, that's fine, but be mindful about past splits like this where similar things happened, involving the same people, and those reports were shot down then, too. Be assured that Slackhappy International isn't vulnerable to these kinds of things and that when you say you are thinking for yourself you are following it up by regurgitating the same enabling rhetoric that is the source of these kinds of descriptions outside of the slackware community.

Frankly, little defense is needed to this kind of thing. I can verify 100% that not one person in this thread has used our public inquiry methods or sat in on our support mediums to see what we do, even for a moment. That said, I find it hard to believe that any of that thought is real. If there are things we could be doing better, don't hesitate to send an email, it's designed as a resource for the community.

There is a strange phenomenon that occurs when people get behind a keyboard too long where they begin to feel entitled to dump on strangers when they feel there may be some kind of social immunity (e.g., this thread), but for a group of people who were just discussing ethical practices, I can't believe that this kind of hostility (yes, thats exactly what I'm responding to now), is coming from the same people who initially asked these questions. So, believe what you would like, my request is that you believe intelligently.

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Have a nice day.
I believe you have accomplished your goal *and* you have given your organization some free advertising. Heh.

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Well I WAS just about to throw in a special about our support tickets serving as OxyClean coupons, but we're not quite there yet

Thanks for the talk.

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As stated before, you cannot 'fork' a community -- you can merely add to it. The collective Slackware community includes more than just this site and ##slackware -- the Slackware community encompasses all resources devoted to educating users about or helping users with Slackware. You have expanded the Slackware community by a site, IRC channel and helpline, from the sounds of it. This is not to be taken as an insult toward SI -- I just disagree with your statement that a community can be forked.
I think the manner of its creation had more to do with introducing hostility than the creation itself.
How do we know the logs are doctored, and yours aren't? It seems to me that 'The Wall of Shame' was meant to be defamatory and libelous itself, and although it may have been a derivative work in that 'they did it first!' it still makes it quite as libelous as the original logs. It is impossible to determine what happened since internet forgery is very easy to do on both sides. Additionally, you are implying (or suggesting directly) that each of Robby Workman, Darren Austin, and Matt Hayes *all* baited your members. Robby Workman's page contains information that says otherwise, so although you may be accusing all three equally such an accusation should not be generalized to include all unless you have very good proof suggesting all three were involved in impersonating.
If a restraining order has not actually been granted by a legal authority your argument there is groundless, and anyone can send out C&D notices via e-mail. The act of e-mailing someone with a C&D letter and claiming a restraining order will be pursued does not implicate anyone and merely states an effort to deal with the situation legally regardless of whether or not it has any merit. I could claim the same about you; it does not all of a sudden mean you have done anything wrong.
By IGNORING licensing hangups instead of dealing with them properly you are violating copyright law! How is this beneficial to anyone? Unless the WTFPL license was in place (which is wasn't) you can't just take someone else's work uncredited and modify the license attached. How can you be opposed to libel but freely support copyright violation, especially when the libelous acts were reciprocated?
Slackware 11.0 was my first distribution and I got along fine. But I did read some documentation. To expect anyone to be able to use Slackware without using any documentation is foolish. There are other distributions with a lower learning curve. If you are not willing to put in the effort and you need to be spoon-fed every command without knowing what it does, Slackware would be a much less appropriate choice of distro than one that has a higher level of abstraction from the user.
Other Linux communities in established distros are taking off because they have more members and more people using the distribution, and problems are easier to explain because of high-level abstraction. There is nothing wrong with GUIfied distros that filter away the system internals, and those distros are appropriate for those who do not wish to read copious amounts of information and micromanage a system like Slackware. It is immensely easier and less frustrating to tell a completely newbie to check a box in System Properties or something than to tell them to edit a text file and issue terminal commands when they don't know *anything* about the Linux console. Slackware faces significantly different problems in communication than many other distros because of its design philosophy. Instead of spoon-feeding every newbie commands to issue for every little problem, getting them to actually learn a bit of bash and/or console commands will make everything more enjoyable for both the user requesting help and the user(s) giving it. For an example of this, see this thread (which admittedly is relatively hostile) and specifically this ridiculous post which describes EXACTLY why we almost demand some level of research on the part of the user requesting help. You cannot force Slackware to be a mainstream distro while still providing help to those who are opposed to do independent research -- it just isn't that kind of distro (nor do I want it to be). That's not to say that newbies aren't welcome, nor that we won't help them -- again, Slackware was my first distro and I did fine, and plenty of people have asked for help here and elsewhere and have received it as long as they did their best to act respectfully.
You've mentioned this twice, but have failed to provide any examples of when the community fractured in a similar manner. Quite frankly the only split that carries any resemblance that I can recall is the recent LibreOffice/OpenOffice thing, and that had to do with actual code...I can't recall a community fracture where the original non-coding community cannibalized the original. Citation please?

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Seriously? What is it the idea here? A "mIRC" war?

BTW, Mods, looks like we have a problem!

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Ok - this has gone far enough. What worries me is that perhaps a casual observer or newcomer to Slackware and it's community may take the comments of Mathezula at face value and be put off the distribution. In fact any such ill founded derogatory comments about Slackware and it's community, (of which I am one), bother me - simply because they are just that - ill founded. A brief sampling of the attitude, advice and helpfulness shown in this forum will testify to that. For some unknown reason Mathezula seems to think differently. To anyone who may, perhaps, give credence to Mathezula's comments I would say to simply check other threads on the forum and see what you think of Slackware user's attitude.

What really bothers me is that inaccurate and false reports about the attitude of Slackware's community gives a bad impression of the distribution itself. A distribution's reputation is not just gained from it's own merits but from user's reports. In other words a newcomer, reading this thread, may be put of Slackware and that's not good. I think what I am ineloquently trying to say is, as much as we all love Slackware, our BDFL earns his living through the distribution so Mathezula is not only discrediting our community wrongly but perhaps putting PV out of pocket. I hope he feels good about that!

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Sounds like you're upset about the wrong person. I believe that people should take what I say at face value as well as their own inquiries-- I mean every bit of it. But I think you misread what I was saying or you would not have erroneously assumed that I have taken a hostile stance towards the distribution or this forum (had you read what I said, you would have read that I definitely said just the opposite). I did notice the attempt to polarize my statements to take away from their meaning, but, everyone has their own conversational devices and I've seen that one about as often as I've seen other types. If you believe the community is being wronged by actions of some of its leading contributors, then complaining to people who are on the receiving end of their illegitimate behaviors is probably not the right way of correcting your grievance. I do agree with you though that some cleaning up needs done, but that's a little beyond what I can help, so I help out with Slackhappy instead, which is a collection of evolving ideas that I want to see materialized.

As for T3's questions, T3Slider, you seem to have a few preconceptions that don't really align with events you mentioned; I'd be happy to discuss organizational administration or computing-related philosophies with you in great depth- I agree with much of what you said when what you said was not based on a false supporting assumption (I believe our disagreement is in the details)-- you can send me an email (mathezula at gmail.com) and I'd be happy to receive an interview directed by you if that would clear up any 'mistakes in transmission'.

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I appreciate your response to me and also your articulacy. I don't wish to pry into your obvious grievances with, as you say, "some of its leading contributors" but, to be honest, it seems your conflict is perhaps with certain people and I interpreted that as being a general animosity against members here and perhaps a grievance with the distribution itself - if a grievance with a linux distribution is possible. If I was mistaken I apologize, but you must see how your comments could easily be misinterpreted. In any case, I am still unsure what Slackhappy is all about but good luck with your Slackware ventures! Feel free to come back if there's any help you may need, not that you need my invitation, or maybe even help out someone else.

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This thread remains closed.

@Mathezula:
- Making accusations, not supported right here by tangible evidence, like "resistance came in the form of libelous and defamatory publications" is untactful and is a violation of the LQR (#6: "without insult and personal attack").
- Referring to legal processes like seeking restraining orders and with R/L names to boot is unwise, untactful and a violation of the LQR (#1: threatening, #2: personal attacks).
- Bringing news of a "fork in the Slackware Linux support community" to LQ in itself is not a violation of the LQR but since this is the official Slackware forum any resistance will be a given. Given previous LQR's I won't file for the lesser LQR (#4: constructive, #3: no flame wars) though this should be recorded anyway.

Bringing a dispute (being fought out primarily through web sites and IRC channels) of this magnitude and with these implications and in the predetermined way this has been done to Linuxquestions.org (LQ) is does not contribute to the good LQ atmosphere or Slackware or Linux in general. We respect each LQ members' contributions. We value constructive dialog. But while the dialog between parties did not go nuclear right now (thanks all who remained polite and respectful) I deem this topic potentially too volatile to continue. As such this thread will remain closed.
@Mathezula: please Cease and Desist in contributing to LQ on this topic immediately.
@All: and I hope you understand that this goes for you as well.

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