Will we lose Pat and Slackware?

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Recently,we know that ,the main developer of Slackware Pat is seriously ill.
We are very worried about Pat,and we have to consider if we will lose Slckware--World's Still Existing Distrobution.

Here is a post from Distrobution.com

The future of Slackware Linux

Slackware With the imminent release of Slackware Linux 10.1 and recent serious health problems affecting Patrick Volkerding, the distribution's founder and maintainer, it is time to look at the possibilities that lie ahead of the world's oldest surviving Linux distributions. Let's be honest about it, there is a concern in the community that if Patrick is no longer able to maintain the distribution, it will simply die. This is witnessed by the discussion forums on these pages and our inbox with regular messages by Slackware users who, as much as they love the distribution, are reluctant to make a long-term commitment to using Slackware. "What happens if Pat gets hit by a truck?" is a question often accompanying such emails.

Worry not, folks, for Slackware will survive, even if the worst happens and Patrick is no longer able to maintain the distribution. There are two reasons for it. Firstly, despite its appearance of being a low-profile project, Slackware Linux is by no means a small distribution. It has substantial following of die-hard Slackware users who spend less time bickering about the distribution's merits on public forums and more time supporting it with help and cash. In fact, Patrick mentioned several times in the past that the sales of Slackware CDs and merchandise are profitable to the extent that he is able to make a living from developing Slackware and still give it away for free download. Also, the history of Linux distributions is a good indication that a sudden end of Slackware is highly unlikely. As an example, did you know that Ian Murdock, the founder of Debian, left the project even before Debian's first stable release? Last year, Daniel Robbins, the founder of Gentoo, also retired from the organisation. Have Debian or Gentoo died because their respective founders decided to pursue some other interests? Of course not!

The second reason why I believe that Slackware will survive its current crisis is that, despite the appearance of its being developed single-handedly by Patrick, the truth is that Slackware has many contributors. Just look through its current changelog and you will notice a large number of names who help with the development, if not always directly, at least by reporting bugs. These are people who not only have a vested interest in seeing that Slackware Linux continues its existence, but who, sharing the philosophy behind Slackware, would undoubtedly be able and willing to take over the project, in case the current leader is unable to continue his work.

But perhaps the most valid argument comes from Patrick himself, as expressed in the most recent entry of the Slackware changelog: "Also, in case of emergency I've left instructions with some very trusted people, so nobody should have to worry that if something happens to me that their Slackware systems will be orphaned and unsupported. It may be a long road back for me, but there will be people taking care of security issues as they crop up (like the folks at GUS-BR and SlackSec), and if I should make an unplanned departure there is a basic plan of succession in place."

So there you have it. Even though Patrick is seriously ill with a rare disease that many doctors have been unable to diagnose, let alone cure, the Slackware maintainer is still concerned about you and I, the users of his distribution so that we don't have to run an operating system with no security updates in place. How many of us would be able to do the same? How many of us would be able to unselfishly put the interests of total strangers above those of our own?

Here is a link to the Slackware Store. If you can, support the man who is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the greatest ambassadors of the Linux movement.

Some letters from Pat.

1. +--------------------------+
   
2. Tue Nov 16 08:50:51 PST 2004
   
3. Hi folks, sorry about the lack of updates for a while.
   
4. I've been pretty sick. If you want the full details (especially if
   
5. you are in a position to help me), please see the file
   
6. PAT-NEEDS-YOUR-HELP.txt.
   
7. 
   
8. ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-current/PAT-NEEDS-YOUR-HELP.txt
   
9. 
   
10. Thanks. :-)

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1. +--------------------------+
   
2. Thu Nov 25 17:14:42 PST 2004
   
3. "Netcraft does not yet confirm it"
   
4. 
   
5. Hi again, everyone. I wish I could report that I'm doing great
   
6. and will be back to full health soon, but I can't. Possibly due to
   
7. the antibiotics I've already taken, the doctors I've seen have been
   
8. unable to find signs of infection, and my blood ESR is normal.
   
9. Nevertheless, the signs of complications from an infection are quite
   
10. clear. I've had a number of pulmonary "pops" that are either burst
    
11. lung abscesses or blebs, and things have spread in a bad way. A
    
12. thickening of my pleura has been noted, as well as pericarditis.
    
13. Most disturbing of all, I have developed mitral valve prolapse and
    
14. regurgitation. I've had a fever and soaking night sweats. I can't
    
15. stand for too long without getting faint. Lately I've been spending
    
16. a lot of my time on the floor. I have no history of heart problems
    
17. and when I got the first chest pains (crushing ones) I went to the
    
18. ER immediately. This was on 11/10. They found nothing wrong and
    
19. sent me away. The next day I saw an internal medicine MD who gave me
    
20. a complete exam including carefully listening for heart problems, and
    
21. found nothing wrong. The pain continued, and by the time I got to
    
22. the Mayo I had heart trouble so obvious that nobody has failed to
    
23. recognize it since. However, it's been a problem getting anyone to
    
24. consider that this is a new problem. Most of the people I've seen
    
25. think that they are the first to notice it and that everyone before
    
26. them must have missed it, and that I've certainly had it my whole life.
    
27. But having recently had a major infection and fever and developing a
    
28. new murmur and chest pains I'd think it would be only prudent to
    
29. treat this as complicated infective endocarditis. I've been to
    
30. another different ER with more crushing chest pains since then and
    
31. have begged for a needle biopsy to check the plural fluid for empyema,
    
32. but nobody will do this diagnostic either. I've verified online that
    
33. it's not only possible to have a normal ESR and infective endocarditis
    
34. but that patients that present that way have a statistically worse
    
35. outcome (maybe because nobody will treat it). Anyway, I'm still
    
36. hoping to get the treatment that I'm sure I need, but if there's an
    
37. insistance on clinical proof first and treatment second, the proof
    
38. might be found at autopsy time. Oh, I've also finally flunked an ECG
    
39. after several normal ones and at least pericarditis is now proven.
    
40. Now, to clear up a few things. In my initial report I mistakenly
    
41. reported that I'd taken 60 days of Cipro for a pulmonary infection.
    
42. (hey, I was up late freaking out a bit) This might not have been
    
43. for as long a period of time, and it was actually to treat a
    
44. relapse of prostatitis (and yes, that does require a long course).
    
45. As for those who say I should stop trying to diagnose myself: I am
    
46. trying to get doctors to diagnose this ongoing problem. Meanwhile,
    
47. it is only wise to try to figure out what's going on myself, and to
    
48. get input from as many sources as I possibly can. After all,
    
49. sometimes the cavalry just isn't coming. Or as the old (I think
    
50. Russian) proverb says: "Pray to God, but keep rowing to shore."
    
51. 
    
52. I built a few updates to get my mind on happier things. Maybe I'll
    
53. have time to look at the kernel sometime soon, too, but getting my
    
54. health back remains the A-number-1 priority here.
    
55. 
    
56. kde/koffice-1.3.5-i486-1.tgz: Upgraded to koffice-1.3.5.
    
57. kdei/koffice*.tgz: Upgraded to koffice-i18n-1.3.5.
    
58. 
    
59. Also, Bruno H Collovini and Piter Punk in Brazil have been helping
    
60. to build security updates for Slackware while I'm (mostly) out of
    
61. commission. They've helped with Slackware for many years and I
    
62. trust and authorize their patches. These can be found here:
    
63. 
    
64.        http://www.slackware.org.br/~patrick/WORKGUS/
    
65. 
    
66. Thanks to everyone who has offered to help, and sent get well soon
    
67. and other kind emails. I really appreciate it. I'm also grateful
    
68. for many of the suggestions on how to boost my immune system with
    
69. natural products (hey, that oregano oil can't hurt and tastes
    
70. pretty good! :-). I'm going to have to request that the phone
    
71. calls stop unless it's for a really good reason, as I've had more
    
72. calls than I can possibly return at this point.
    
73. 
    
74. All the best (and to those in the US, happy Thanksgiving),
    
75. 
    
76. Pat
    
77. 
    
78. PS My primary development box just mostly locked up on me, so I'll
    
79. probably be unable to do additional updates (or at least sign them
    
80. properly) until I can get back to CA. What I can and will do is to
    
81. run a top-level CHECKSUMS.md5, and then sign that with my GPG key.
    
82. 
    
83. PPS Please do not post emails from me without my permission.
    
84.        Thanks.
    

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1. Sat Dec 18 23:22:21 PST 2004
   
2. " "
   
3. 
   
4. Hi folks. Well, I'm back in California and I'm happy to let you all know
   
5. that I'm feeling much better. :-) Here are a few updates so you can see
   
6. that I'm trying to get back into the swing of things. Hopefully 10.1 won't
   
7. be too far off (I'm still trying to figure out just how far behind we are,
   
8. and what other fixes need to get merged in), and then we can look at what
   
9. exactly needs to be done to try to switch over to the new kernel series for
   
10. 11, or sometime later on. I still don't think it's time for that yet (it
    
11. will be best to wait until 2.4 can be abandoned). Besides, I should
    
12. probably be trying to take it easy as much as I can.
    
13. There's no need to try for an encore...
    
14. 
    
15. I offer my thanks and gratitude to the many people who sent me kind words
    
16. and good advice, or indeed anything at all. I figure it was all for a
    
17. reason, and that there were always lessons to be learned. Hopefully I'll
    
18. learn them now! ;-)
    
19. 
    
20. Most of these fine people will remain anonymous, however, one of my
    
21. doctors was Leonardo Faoro, a medical resident at the Mayo Clinic. He's
    
22. running a support site for cancer patients at:
    
23.        http://www.cancerforums.net
    
24. and if you feel his site might be useful for yourself or anyone you know,
    
25. please spread the word about it. Leo is a good guy and one heck of a
    
26. great doctor, and giving his site a little plug here is the least I can do.
    
27. He didn't ask for it, but don't think he'll mind.
    
28. 
    
29. Very best wishes to all, good luck in 2005, and THANKS AGAIN!,
    
30. It's good to be back. :-)
    
31. 
    
32. I think I've been helped now, so this text file won't hang
    
33. around forever, but I'll leave it at
    
34. 
    
35.        http://slackware.com/~volkerdi/PAT-NEEDS-YOUR-HELP.txt
    
36. 
    
37. for a little while in case anyone is still interested.
    
38. It's the closest thing to a blog I've ever done. (ooooo! ;-)
    
39. 
    
40. Take care,
    
41. 
    
42. Pat

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1. +--------------------------+
   
2. Sat Jan 22 18:12:37 PST 2005
   
3. "Goes to show, you don't ever know"
   
4. 
   
5. Hi folks!
   
6.        I'm going to call this Slackware 10.1 beta 1, because we're at a state
   
7. where things are relatively stable. There have been a great deal of
   
8. improvements over Slackware 10.0, and it would be best to get this out
   
9. before trying to tackle the major changes for Slackware 11.
   
10. 
    
11.        As far as I know, there are no serious security issues remaining in the
    
12. -current tree at this time. There may still be a few image decoder bugs, but
    
13. these seem to be crash bugs at worst, if even that. I've yet to hear of any of
    
14. them allowing remote access, or privilege escalation. I do not think they are
    
15. worth delaying a Slackware release over. I'd like to get to them, but my
    
16. condition is preventing this, and so I'm going to tell it like I think it is:
    
17. The sky is not really falling, regardless of what you read on BugTraq. If I
    
18. am missing anything major though, please mail to security at slackware.com and
    
19. let me know about it. As always, I want this to be a high-quality release.
    
20. 
    
21.        And about my status... I didn't want to have to bring this up again, but
    
22. since a lot of people are under the impression that I've recovered and I'm
    
23. just fine (and are beginning to make the usual demands of my time ;-), I'd
    
24. better clarify what's going on. Especially since I'm not exactly fine.
    
25. 
    
26.        Back on Thu Nov 25, I posted in the ChangeLog that I thought I had infective
    
27. endocarditis (and was promptly flamed for self-diagnosing again). After so
    
28. much beating around the bush without getting a referral to a cardiologist, I
    
29. finally called one myself and waited the two weeks it takes to get in. He is
    
30. a top-notch doctor and heart surgeon (I was very lucky to be able get in to see
    
31. him), and with no planting of any suggestion from me whatsoever came to the
    
32. conclusion that it seemed to be infective endocarditis. I'm still waiting for
    
33. more test results, but it looks like I finally have someone working on my side.
    
34. So, lets hope that they get some conclusive diagnostics (I get another echo on
    
35. Wednesday), that I make it until they do, and that it's not too late for this
    
36. to be treated without a need for valve (or heart) replacement. I've had a
    
37. rough couple of weeks (well, months really, but especially the last two weeks),
    
38. and I have to say that while it's good to have a near-death experience every
    
39. couple of years to keep your head clear and your focus on the important things
    
40. in life, having one every morning is too often. With that frequency, they
    
41. start to become a distraction. ;-)
    
42. 
    
43.        So, this verson is going to be wrapped up pretty quickly. I hope people
    
44. will support the release, because I'm sure I'll have a lot more bills before
    
45. all of this is through, and I'm blowing through what little money I've managed
    
46. to save. Again, I'm not asking for donations, but I hope that when Slackware
    
47. 10.1 comes out that people wanting to help out will order it. Also, in case
    
48. of emergency I've left instructions with some very trusted people, so nobody
    
49. should have to worry that if something happens to me that their Slackware
    
50. systems will be orphaned and unsupported. It may be a long road back for me,
    
51. but there will be people taking care of security issues as they crop up
    
52. (like the folks at GUS-BR and SlackSec), and if I should make an unplanned
    
53. departure there are is a basic plan of succession in place.
    
54. 
    
55.        Thanks again to all the kind folks I've known over the years, and I hope
    
56. to know you for many more. :-)
    
57. 
    
58. Your Humble Slackware Maintainer,
    
59. 
    
60. Pat
    

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dreamawake

pat已经康复了。

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Read this:
From the post of
Sat Jan 22 18:12:37 PST 2005

And about my status... I didn't want to have to bring this up again, but
since a lot of people are under the impression that I've recovered and I'm
just fine (and are beginning to make the usual demands of my time ;-), I'd
better clarify what's going on. Especially since I'm not exactly fine.

SystemMan

假如他在广州住院，我一定会去看望他
开玩笑而已