Sat Jan 22 18:12:37 PST 2005
"Goes to show, you don't ever know"

Hi folks!
I'm going to call this Slackware 10.1 beta 1, because we're at a state
where things are relatively stable. There have been a great deal of
improvements over Slackware 10.0, and it would be best to get this out
before trying to tackle the major changes for Slackware 11.

As far as I know, there are no serious security issues remaining in the
-current tree at this time. There may still be a few image decoder bugs, but
these seem to be crash bugs at worst, if even that. I've yet to hear of any of
them allowing remote access, or privilege escalation. I do not think they are
worth delaying a Slackware release over. I'd like to get to them, but my
condition is preventing this, and so I'm going to tell it like I think it is:
The sky is not really falling, regardless of what you read on BugTraq. If I
am missing anything major though, please mail to security at slackware.com and
let me know about it. As always, I want this to be a high-quality release.

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.

Back on Thu Nov 25, I posted in the ChangeLog that I thought I had infective
endocarditis (and was promptly flamed for self-diagnosing again). After so
much beating around the bush without getting a referral to a cardiologist, I
finally called one myself and waited the two weeks it takes to get in. He is
a top-notch doctor and heart surgeon (I was very lucky to be able get in to see
him), and with no planting of any suggestion from me whatsoever came to the
conclusion that it seemed to be infective endocarditis. I'm still waiting for
more test results, but it looks like I finally have someone working on my side.
So, lets hope that they get some conclusive diagnostics (I get another echo on
Wednesday), that I make it until they do, and that it's not too late for this
to be treated without a need for valve (or heart) replacement. I've had a
rough couple of weeks (well, months really, but especially the last two weeks),
and I have to say that while it's good to have a near-death experience every
couple of years to keep your head clear and your focus on the important things
in life, having one every morning is too often. With that frequency, they
start to become a distraction. ;-)

So, this verson is going to be wrapped up pretty quickly. I hope people
will support the release, because I'm sure I'll have a lot more bills before
all of this is through, and I'm blowing through what little money I've managed
to save. Again, I'm not asking for donations, but I hope that when Slackware
10.1 comes out that people wanting to help out will order it. 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 are is a basic plan of succession in place.

Thanks again to all the kind folks I've known over the years, and I hope
to know you for many more. :-)

Your Humble Slackware Maintainer,

Pat

The price of the Slackware 10.1 isn't high, compared to it's Power. And he's counting on us... After all, Xmas is not far .

I wonder why your location is Paris.. :-) Anyway, thanks for the good distro. I am trying Slamd64 to take advantage of my 64bit machine. I hope you could port the official distro to 64bit although the 32bit one can be run on it.

what are you talking about?? the OP was a cut/paste from the slackware changelog... it wasn't a post by Mr. Volkerding...

oopps. sorry. I thought he is Patrick. Now I wonder what Patrick nickname here..

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ad.php?t=39883

i'm not sure he has one... or maybe he does but remains anonymous?? i really don't know... but i don't think it would be a smart thing for a celebrity like him to have a publicly-known user account here at LQ - as it's likely that, after every post of his, the threads would get bombarded with SPAM, like from people thanking him and asking him to port stuff, etc...

I doubt if he would reply to 1 year old informational posts if he was.

I think he does, though he has only made one post.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...759#post182759

PS: The only reason I know this because this thread was linked to in a more modern post. I don't actively go searching for posts made by 'celebrity' people

hehe, stalker!!!

no, but seriously, thanks for the link, it's nice to know this... i guess his account is more of a symbolic thing or whatever... either way, i'm pretty sure he does monitor the threads here in the slackware forum even if he doesn't do any actual posting with his "official" account (i assume he posts using an alias)... it wouldn't make sense if he didn't monitor this forum, considering this is like the biggest slackware forum AFAIK...

in fact, he's probably reading this thread right now...

oh yes. that's Pat. 1 post so far. no wonder because he is a very busy man.