I hear a lot of noise about swaret being or not being included in the new 10.0
release. Obviously, it is Patrick Volkerding's (PV) choice and I doubt he
will be influenced by anything said in this group as I'm told he does not
monitor it.
Still, we have an obligation to debate the issue.... and maybe even to write
PV personally.
The issue is simple. What is best for Slackware? I'll leave the techie
arguments to those who like them. Dependency checking or no dependency
checking debates can go on until the moon turns blue.
All of us want Slack to be continued. That means that someone (i.e. we) have
to pay for it. I believe that PV would never "sell out" by including "bad
stuff" in Slack in order to compete. However, he (and we) need to consider
something (not agree on it... just consider it.): Is Slack more marketable
with a designated 'full-bore' pkg manager or not?
Why is "marketable" important to you? Simple. People have choices. Everytime
someone chooses a Deb or a Fedora or a Gentoo over Slackware means less
possible revenue for PV. Maybe PV would "do" Slack even if there were only
two users on the planet. I don't know. But I assume he has a family to feed
like the rest of us. Thus it is in our best interest if he does what is in
his best interest... to put in modules and packages that will appeal to those
who use his product... and who will pay for it.
I strongly believe that a Slackware with a "designated" dep-checking package
manager like a swaret is a stronger product than one without it.
I'm a typical example. I would not continue to use Slackware if there were not
a swaret. I would go to Deb 'testing." This should not be hard to understand.
Lots of business types like me "want it all." We want the efficiency and
compactness of Slack with ease of administration. Slack WITH a swaret does
that. Without it, it doesn't... compared to other distros. Swaret is GOOD for
Slackware. No one is forced to use it... but because it is there it adds
value to the product... value that I'm happy to pay $40 each release for. And
I believe that it is my forty bucks, along with the others who make an annual
financial commitment to Slack is what has kept the distro going.
I know many of you think that Slack is a "public service" or a "charity" of
some kind, but as I understand it, Slackware is a for-profit corporate
entity... and it needs to make money to pay the people who make Slackware for
us.
So I hope that PV has enough "business sense" to see that a Slack with a
dependency-checking PM makes it a better product, one that is more marketable
and more competitive. It costs PV nothing to include a swaret or a slapt-get
utility as his "weapon of choice" and it makes the product a better one.
Now if these PMs were crap, of course I'd say to PV "fergetaboutit." But these
are good pieces of software, they work well for most users, and to not
include them because of some kind of 'ego' problem with the developer is not
doing any of us any good.
I know to a fair segment of the Slack (and Linux) community, making money is
an anathema... that working on Linux should be a labor of love. However, the
reality of the situation is that without an income to PV, Slack would be
turned over to a "community of developers" and we'd see updates about as
frequently as Deb stable ..... like never... or we'd see daily bug-ridden
releases like Fedora. We need PV to continue his work... and I think Slack
needs a dep-check PM to keep it from being rated about as high as whatever is
number 100 on distrowatch.com. Because if that happens, PV will go on to
other endeavors and Gentoo will be the distro of choice for those who
graduate from Mandrake or SuSE.
Follow the money.
Alan N. Canton, President
Adams-Blake Company, Inc
Fair Oaks, CA
http://www.jaya123.com