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Todd Kulesza Leaving Dropline GNOME

Posted by timothy on from the does-not-mean-the-project's-ending dept.

Lispy writes "The founder of the popular Dropline GNOME environment for Slackware, Todd Kulesza, announced yesterday that he is leaving his project. In a note on the Dropline homepage he explains that he simply doesn't have the time to maintain three different Open Source projects anymore. With Patrick Volkerding being temporarily out of business and Todd leaving Dropline GNOME, I guess the future for Slackware GNOME fans doesn't look bright these days. Who wants to hop in and continue Dropline?"

17 comments

  1. Who wants to hop in and continue Dropline? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Who wants to hop in and continue Dropline?

    I do! Of course I don't have the time, experience, or skill to do it, so I won't.

    1. Re: Who wants to hop in and continue Dropline? by silux · · Score: 0, Redundant

      If I had the time and/or the knowledge required I would gladly do this. Sadly I do not. I hope someone steps up to the plate though.

    2. Re: Who wants to hop in and continue Dropline? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Always nice to hear from the peanut gallery.

  2. What a waste! by dorward · · Score: 3, Funny

    What a waste of a chance for a good pun. "Dropline Maintainer Drops Out"

    1. Re:What a waste! by MarkRose · · Score: 3, Funny

      Naw, Todd Kulesza's just being a slack-er ;)

      --
      Be relentless!
    2. Re:What a waste! by Lispy · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I realized that too. I blew it. ;-/

  3. Vulnerability. by MarkRose · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is the primary reason why I never got into slack. Slack is basically built by one man, and it's the same story with the gnome packages for slack. While this can give a project a strong direction, it also leaves the project very vulnerable to the whims and lives of those maintaining it. And while I could figure out how to maintain it myself, I don't have the resources to do a proper job, and thus I stick with more popular, team-produced projects.

    --
    Be relentless!
    1. Re:Vulnerability. by 0racle · · Score: 1

      Making Slackware packages is increadably easy. Maintianing it yourself is a lot easier then any of the others but more importantly, it should be relatively easy for someone(s) to step in and take over. Except for dropline, that looks a little more indepth then your average Slackware package.

      --
      "I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
  4. His other projects by Noksagt · · Score: 4, Informative

    In case anyone is interested, his other two projects are:
    Optimystic--CD creation for GNOME
    DrivelLiveJournal client for GNOME

  5. True, but by trelin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    One of the beautiful things about Slack is the fact that it can be manually updated for long periods of time without using formal releases; I know people still using a base system of 7.1 running 2.6, X.org, the latest GCC/Glibc, etc., with wonderful success.

    Granted, it takes more manual work, but if you like the system to begin with it generally doesn't bug you.

  6. Opteron Port by turgid · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Slackware badly needs an Opteron/Athlon 64 port. Most new PeeCees will be 64-bit pretty soon.

    I notice that there has been an IBM S390 port, so all three people who want to run Linux on S390 can choose a different distro (Slackware, SuSE, Red Hat). If IBM wants to make friends in the community, they could have spent the time and money on something more useful.

    I've been a loyal Slackware user since 1995, and I'd offer to do an Opteron port if I had a machine and the time... I've been slowly amassing the required clue-set over the years, but that has coincided with a very busy work schedule. Maybe in the neay year...

    --
    Stick Men
    1. Re:Opteron Port by 0racle · · Score: 1

      All you'd need to do for most packages is add a line to the SlackBuild:

      if [[ "$ARCH" == "Opteron"]]; then
      OPTIMIZ="-O2 -march=athlon"
      fi

      change how $ARCH is defined as at the top of the script, or something like that, I don't know what the Opeteron is identified as, and then a build system. You might want to add a /lib-64 and /usr-lib64 or something like that, but it can't be all that hard. glibc has x86_64 as an $ARCH option, so its probably just a matter of going through and altering the rest of the packages.

      --
      "I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
    2. Re:Opteron Port by turgid · · Score: 1

      I have a friend who's interested in doing this too. After Christmas.... :-)

      --
      Stick Men
  7. I knew this would happen.... by flamesrock · · Score: 0
    Volderking had hinted briefly that gnome might be removed from Slackware, so he must have known SOMETHING at the time.

    In any case, I won't be affected...If there are enough DL slackware users, the project will survive. If not, evolution triumphs!

    http://simcitysphere.com/

    1. Re:I knew this would happen.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, he wasn't going to support it himself anymore, since Dropline was a better job. Oops.