I re-posted his letter to one of my publisher listservs. There are about 550
book publishers on the list and while it is not a large list, these folks
know folks who know folks, so my hope is the letter will get passed around
and the right medical authority will see it and respond.

In June of 1999 I posted this letter:

http://adams-blake.com/item.php?reco...estyle=default

to this SAME group and it went around the world and raised $201,000 (and yes,
I can verifiy it if you wish. Maybe you saw me and wife on the news?)

Those of you who are members of other listservs or "connected groups" might
want to post it there as well and we can all hope for the same desired
result.

It may not work, but doing "something" is a hell of a lot better than doing
"nothing."

Al Canton, President
Adams-Blake Company, Inc
Fair Oaks, Ca.

On 2004-11-16, alexrait1 <alexrait1@armenia-dot-ru.no-spam.invalid> wrote:
> It can't continue this way. Slackware has to be developed by a much
> broader forum. Look at Debian - they have 900 official developers...
> The same with other large scale distros.

In case you haven't noticed, Slackware is THE OLDEST existing distro of
Linux. It's also still in the top 10 favorite distros out of ...what?...
300+ available distros? Can you guess what that means? If no, I'll clue
you in. Slackware is one awesome, amazing, distribution of Linux.

Geez! ....have a little faith, ferchrysakes!

nb

notbob (notbob@nothome.com) writes:
> On 2004-11-16, alexrait1 <alexrait1@armenia-dot-ru.no-spam.invalid> wrote:
>> It can't continue this way. Slackware has to be developed by a much
>> broader forum. Look at Debian - they have 900 official developers...
>> The same with other large scale distros.
>
> In case you haven't noticed, Slackware is THE OLDEST existing distro of
> Linux. It's also still in the top 10 favorite distros out of ...what?...
> 300+ available distros? Can you guess what that means? If no, I'll clue
> you in. Slackware is one awesome, amazing, distribution of Linux.
>
> Geez! ....have a little faith, ferchrysakes!
>
> nb
And what does "900 official developers" mean? They are hardly all working
on Debian, since Debian isn't particularly unique. If there are that many,
it has to be a lame distribution.

But it's not. And the figure has to mean all the people working on the
parts that make up a Linux distribution. So while they are "working on Debian"
they are also working on Slackware, and all the rest.

Even with Redhat, their talk of paying for development means that they are
simply putting money into open source software. If it's open source, everyone
benefits.

Now one can argue that Slackware might be able to make use of more help. But
Slackware doesn't develop all that much. The installer? I'm not sure that
gets much updating, or needs it. Slackware is about putting the pieces
together so they work together, and deciding what should be part of the
distribution, and where it goes. More help might mean there's a 64-bit
Slackware, or that Gnome remains in Slackware, to reference two recent threads
here.

Michael

On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 18:39:11 +0000, +Alan Hicks+ wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> In alt.os.linux.slackware, Petri Kaukasoina dared to utter,
>> See PAT-NEEDS-YOUR-HELP.txt in slackware-current.
>
> In the interests of this newsgroup and the plethoria of trolls that are
> about to come in with some Netcraft study proving Slackware is dying,
> let me say the following.
>
> Things like this happen all the time, and if you read the full message
> it looks as if there's good hope. Pat just needs to find the right help
> for something that is a rare medical condition. I'm sure we'll all pull
> together and find the help he needs, and come up with the dough if
> that's what it takes.
>

I'm somewhat of a crackpot when it comes to things medical, and I think
that there would be no harm if Patrick were to investigate "alternative"
things, like acupuncture, and spiritual hoop-te-doos, and witchcraft,
and what the heck - as long as it doesn't make him any worse, maybe it
could be looked at as an experiment - there _have_ been officially,
scientifically sanctioned reports that say that the "placebo effect"
can be observed. So, why shouldn't he check it out, just in case?
A spell might have even more power than a sugar pill! (please pardon
levity)

Is anyone here on good enough terms with him to email him with a
presentation of something this bizarre, even if only as a thought
experiment?

In the interim, I'm sending him all the good will that I know how
to.

To Healthy Patrick! Long Live Slackware!

Thanks,
Rich
(I was going to suggest http://www.godchannel.com as the most extreme
of the crackpot magickal healing websites, but their server seems to
be down at the moment. I'll be analyzing the significance of this
circumstance for awhile. Thanks.R.)

Rich Grise wrote:

> I'm somewhat of a crackpot when it comes to things medical, and I think
> that there would be no harm if Patrick were to investigate "alternative"
> things, like acupuncture, and spiritual hoop-te-doos, and witchcraft,
> and what the heck - as long as it doesn't make him any worse, maybe it
> could be looked at as an experiment - there have been officially,
> scientifically sanctioned reports that say that the "placebo effect"
> can be observed. So, why shouldn't he check it out, just in case?
> A spell might have even more power than a sugar pill! (please pardon
> levity)

Four years spent on the couch of a psychanalyst in Vienna, Austria (my
hometown, where that sort of magic comes fromD), and I can only warmly
recommend it. By the way, did you know that more than 80% of couch patients
work in computer-related professions? And this is no joke. For details, see
Freuds text on "The Unconscious", chapter VII (metapsychological writings),
about the astonishing parallelism of abstract thinking in a schizophrenic
mind and... a philosopher. (At the time there were no sysadmins aroundD)

But seriously. If someone has the symptoms as Patrick Volkerding describes,
he ought to see a *specialist*. I mean a *specialist*. Go to a hospital,
make exams. He will need money for that, and lots of it. There's a certain
way of not asking for things (like donations) that signify exactly the
opposite, so I think we can all help, simply by donating. I don't know how
many Slack users there are in the world, but I think it's now our turn to
give something back.

NK

Michael Black wrote:

> More*help*might*mean*there's*a*64-bit
> Slackware, or that Gnome remains in Slackware, to reference two recent
> threads here.

Or a Slackintosh reincarnation (badly needed)...

*sigh*

NK

On 2004-11-17, Niki Kovacs <mickey@mouse.com> wrote:
>
> Or a Slackintosh reincarnation (badly needed)...

Pat never did a PPC port of Slackware; that was another person and an
independent project.

If you're interested in a Slack-like distro for PPC, I suggest CRUX.
It's compatible with the Slackware philosophy, though comes with fewer
packages by default. (Though still more than Slackintosh had, IIRC.)

--keith

--
kkeller-usenet@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us
(try just my userid to email me)
AOLSFAQ=http://wombat.san-francisco.ca.us/cgi-bin/fom

Keith Keller wrote:

> If you're interested in a Slack-like distro for PPC, I suggest CRUX.
> It's compatible with the Slackware philosophy, though comes with fewer
> packages by default.**(Though*still*more*than*Slackintosh*had, *IIRC.)

I know. Just downloaded it. Didn't get into it, though. Makes Slackware look
like Mandrake in comparisonD

On 2004-11-17, Niki Kovacs <mickey@mouse.com> wrote:
> Keith Keller wrote:
>
>> If you're interested in a Slack-like distro for PPC, I suggest CRUX.
>> It's compatible with the Slackware philosophy, though comes with fewer
>> packages by default. (Though still more than Slackintosh had, IIRC.)
>
> I know. Just downloaded it. Didn't get into it, though. Makes Slackware look
> like Mandrake in comparisonD

Just out of curiosity, what didn't you like about CRUX, other than being
nonbloatware?

--keith

--
kkeller-usenet@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us
(try just my userid to email me)
AOLSFAQ=http://wombat.san-francisco.ca.us/cgi-bin/fom

Niki Kovacs <mickey@mouse.com> writes:
> I know. Just downloaded it. Didn't get into it, though. Makes Slackware look
> like Mandrake in comparisonD

there is now CRUX/PPC Evolution:

<http://www.ppcnerds.org/Article232.html>

perhaps that satisfies your thirst for bloat. ;-P

--
Joost Kremers
Life has its moments