Slackware Needs Your Help

The times have been difficult for many of us this past few years.

For Slackware, it’s been no exception. Some of you faithful Slackers may have noticed lately that the Slackware home page has been offline. I posted about this at Jeremy’s Linux Questions forums. Alien Bob (Eric Hameleers) replied stating that it was an old hardware/lack of funds issue. This is sad. 😦

I am in no way associated with the Slackware Linux project other than being a loyal user of the distribution and a frequent commenter/blogger on the subject of Slackware. I want to say that up front here. That being said, I would like to ask a favor… Please, stop on by the Slackware Store and click on that Donate button (top left side of page). I just did a few minutes ago. I didn’t give much. I don’t have much to spare, but I did give something.

For many of us, Slackware has brought joy to our lives, increased our productivity, and provided us with secure and stable computing environment. It’s also taught us a helluva lot about GNU/Linux. Pat V. has never, to my knowledge, stood on his soap box and asked for money from any of us to help defray costs of maintaining Slackware. It’s about time that we showed Slackware a little love. Slackware has always been there for us; it’s our turn.

A buck, two, twenty… every little bit adds up. Buy a cool T-Shirt or the Slackware Essentials book while you’re there.

Slackware needs to be around for many, many more years. Let’s do our part to see that it is.

Thank you,

~Eric

Addenda to follow:

Addendum I

I’m beginning to regret writing this article and starting that thread at LinuxQuestions.org. For crissakes, people! This wasn’t meant to set off a shit storm. Initially, I was only concerned that the Slackware website had been down for a few days. Eric Hameleers (Alien Bob) responded to my query regarding the outage with a comment that, I must admit, did get me worrying a bit. Eric has explained the situation further in the comments on this article. Please read what he had to say.

I don’t worry about Slackware going anywhere anytime soon. There are too many of us loyal to this venerable GNU/Linux distribution to let that happen, I believe. My article here was written only for the purpose of possibly assisting the Slackware Project and Patrick Volkerding in continuing to do what’s been done for 19 years… keeping us all Slacking, baby! 🙂

This article wasn’t meant to incite rock and bottle throwing. GNU/Linux is ALL of us. I don’t care if you run Gentoo, Debian, Mandriva, or some barely known distribution on your systems. The fact is we are ALL GNU/Linux users. We ALL are part of this vast community that pulls together in times of need and helps out one another. GNU/Linux, FOSS, OpenRespect, etc.; that is US, folks.

I see that a few folks have dropped a buck or two in the Slackware tip jar. That’s excellent. Many of us have been using Slackware for years or have benefited from something that came about because of Patrick Volkerding and the Slackware Project. I have NO REGRETS if that tip jar fills some as a result of this article. I will have many regrets should the current shit storms at LinuxQuestions.org or Distrowatch continue.

Later…

~Eric

Addendum II

Member ruario at LinuxQuestions.org made the following comment on the thread linked above regarding the Slackware server being down:

AlienBOB has stated that he and the other contributors don’t get any money from the Slackware donations. That said, he does a great to maintaining Slackware64, offering non-official binary packages, giving advice to users, and teaching us all how to make zoervleis . So if after donating to Slackware you have a little more money burning a hole in your pocket I noticed he has a PayPal donate button on his blog. If might be that Roberto F. Batista (aka PiterPunk), Robby Workman, Stuart Winter and the rest of the contributors take donations as well but I didn’t notice any PayPal links on their respective pages. Ah well, never mind and also I’m not made of money! 😛

I post this here as an addendum because I also feel strongly that the people mentioned by ruario, and many others, are very deserving of some sort of recognition and gratitude from the every day users of Slackware. I’ve used some of Robby’s and Eric’s resources on my own systems before. I’ve learned much from them and the others mentioned; and many not mentioned, like Willy Sudiarto Raharjo, for instance.

If you feel the same, open that wallet again. These people spend a lot of their personal time to benefit assist and improve Slackware and to assist you.

Regards,

~Eric

Addendum III

Read this excellent article by Tom Nardi at The Powerbase – SOS: Save Our Slackware?

Later…

~Eric

Addendum Penultimate

In light of the fact that conversations regarding this topic have, in my opinion, gone in negative and non-constructive directions at the original LinuxQuestions.org thread and elsewhere, and in light of the fact that I was aiming more for support and assistance rather than rock and bottle slinging; I have come to regret starting that thread and writing this article. It was not my intention to stir shit and create strife for Pat V., Eric Hameleers, or anyone in the Slackware community. For this, I apologize.

To those of you who did offer non-critical assistance and support, thanks. The GNU/LInux community is enriched by your participation in it.

Regards,

~Eric

Addendum Final, Maybe 😉

Man! What a ride! Anyway, http://www.slackware.com is BACK UP! YAY! 🙂