Never heard of this before. I need to find out.

It is in fact like a debit card. When I was in the US I had a Visa debit card that I could use like a credit card, but the debit cards over here are Visa Electron (or its Mastercard equivalent) and generally no good for online shopping. Banks allow you to define a virtual credit card online (you don't get the real plastic thing). You can load some amount of money into it and do online shopping.

By the way, I share your remark about international mail prices. I would be shopping more frequently if it weren't for the high postage cost. Still, I at least order a DVD whenever a new release comes out.

I made a donation. I don't want to be pessimistic, but I am worried.

I consider my contribution as an investment rather than as a donation. My worry is that Pat Volkerding does not feel able to make a call upon the Slackware community if things are tight. The annual subscription cost for Slackware, a full featured operating system complete with access to all the software tools that the vast majority of people need, is less than the annual subscription cost I pay for antivirus software on the darkside. I know whose coffers I would rather be filling.

Hear, hear!

I just donated
 

I just made a donation, please give us an update Pat.

I just emailed Pat V. at his Slackware.com email domain. Hopefully, he still has access to his email even though his server is down.

Very quiet around here -- I'm curious if PV is on a temporary leave of abscence and the "reigns" have been handed off to someone in the meantime.

Sorry, I have now law books here. But I know for sure, that it's not allowed to put money in an envelope and send it via normal post to someone else in several European countries, such as Austria and Germany. It's allowed to send cheques, of course.

gargamel

A link to an official website would be nice, anywhere but "I heard somewhere". I'd be interested to hear as it's often said of the US and I've even seen it said of the UK and that simply isn't true.

I don't think Pat has. The change logs have been quite active in current. I think Pat and the crew are very busy working on the next release. I believe something would have been said if Pat was handing the reigns, even temporarily over to someone.

I'll offer my perspective on the situation.

A number of posters seem to be very alarmed about the server being down, but I don't think this is anything to freak out about. I think that if we look at the bigger picture this is just a minor and temporary inconvenience, provided certain community members do their part.

From what I gather, this server has been having problems for some time now. While this server problem is indicative of the funding problem in the Slackware project I highly doubt that it would jeopardize the entire project. The Slackware community is too big (or at least big enough) and as long as Mr. V and the rest of the team are putting out a product someone or something will be there to give it a home.

As a student with practically no income I am not in a position to play philanthropist, at least not when it comes to actual money. That being said, if I did have the money I would certainly donate what I could to the project. The Slackware project needs the help of its users in this regard.

I am going to scrounge up some money for the project, it won't be much but at least I am trying.

I hope that everyone can do their part, and I hope that Pat and the team will not hesitate to ask us for help if they greatly need it.

I agree. As soon as the server goes down, people come here and panic. I guess it may be due to a lack of info. If someone would post something like: "The HDD on our main server decided to die, but we have backups and will get it up ASAP" nobody would panic.

I agree with you about the funding. I also am a student and funds are low.

I recommend what was suggested earlier, a money raising campaign if this is the issue. However, the server has gone down before, and this is the first time anyone said anything about funding. Also, I know that Alien Bob often recommends donating to the project, and it is a good thing if you can afford it.

Well, I didn't panic, actually. I was just curious as to what was up. That's why I started this thread. I admit I felt a twinge of panic when I read Alien Bob's comments about old hardware/lack of funding. Once I saw that, I wrote my blog article to appeal to Slackware users and fans from wherever to drop some spare change in Pat V's tip jar. He never asks anything from us. I just felt Slackware is deserving of some help.

As far as money being tight and all that... Hey! I can relate. I've been out of work since August of 2008. My career (electronics component level RF/Audio repair) went the way of the dodo. There are 10 year old girls in China doing my job for two cups of rice a day. I'm no young whipper-snapper who can shift gears into a new career overnight. All that being said, I manage to make a $ or two fixing computers, small engine work, motorcycle repair, selling carp on eBay, etc.

I tossed a few bucks into the tip jar. Hell skip one meal out and those brews at Chili's tonight and most anyone can drop $20 in the kitty.

Just my thoughts...

Regards,

~Eric

I do request on thing of Alien Bob: Did you mean what you said ? Is it money that is the problem ?