Kai Brust wrote:


> Unfortunaly it needs much more than swaret can do, if you want
> dependency checking that _really_ works. The whole .tgz's have to be
> replaced with a new format and the pkgtools have to be rewritten.
>
> I guess Slackware would *loose* a lot of "customers", if the
> distribution change its direction that way.

I was not advocating a drastic change. I was only advocating that PV simply
recommend (by inclusion) whatever PM (besides pkgtool) that he feels is the
best. That way, new users have an option. We can use a "swaret" manager that
has some (now I'm told limited) dep-checking.... or use the current
pkgtool.... or compile from source (with checkinstall).

Otherwise here is what will happen. As soon as 10 comes out there will be a
bunch of reviews. And the reviews will hammer Slack 10 for not having a
Deb-like or the Gentoo-like PM. And newbies looking to switch from the
commercial distros or the o.s. buggy ones (won't mention any names) will say
"Wow, this Slackware sure looks awesome... but Geez, Louise, I don't want to
have to get a Ph.D in quantum physics in order to upgrade Firefox from .8
to .9."

And this is what prompted me to write this thread. This morning I used swaret
to upgrade Firefox to the new version. I wrote one line on the CLI and got a
flawless install. (And I'll bet that somewhere there is a GUI front-end that
would have not required me to even go to root and use the terminal screen.) I
was so pleased I promptly sent Jim Simmons of Linuxpackages a $50 donatation
via PayPal.... and would send swaret one as well if they had a donation-link
on their site to do so.

This (easy upgrades) is what users want. Indeed, they (we, I) want "it all."
They want the solid and stable performance of Linux, the latest packages
(unlike Deb stable), and they want ease of admin. Slack without a Swaret does
two out of three. With a swaret-like module it's three out of three... and
people have choices... and they will choose Gentoo over Slack... and there
will be less revenue for Slack... and eventually NO Slack.

I know about egos, principles, and all the other ingredients that make up the
the open source "cake". But like it or not, the world runs via a set of
economic rules known as capitalism or "semi-socialism" and so far there has
been no successful alternative economic system that provides the goods and
services to the greatest number. Obviously, it's far from perfect, but all
the others just don't scale.

PV needs to make a living and if he does, we get Slackware 10,11,12, etc. If
people go to Gentoo or whatever, PV gets no income..... and Slack becomes a
fond memory.



ANC