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Slackware 10.1 Beta And Pat's Health

Posted by timothy on from the slack-is-slick dept.

phreakuencies writes "The ChangeLog in slackware-current got a distiguished update today on Jan 22: Patrick Volkerding updated us on his health condition stating he is not back in perfect shape but getting more medical tests and results. The initial phrase on the ChangeLog: 'I'm going to call this Slackware 10.1 beta 1, because we're at a state where things are relatively stable.' Read up here"

5 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. Benevolent Dictator Attitude by vladd_rom · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think this "event" reflects the way in which most open source projects are lead.

    Certainly you won't see in a commercial product news about the health of the developers as items in a ChangeLog.

    However, in open source, the freedom to fork is often given as an excuse for allowing one person to be the benevolent dictator of the whole thing. On good merits, it seems, because many argue that if it weren't for that, things would never get done and stuff. But this "dictator" stuff gives the project owner a lot of power and a lot of discretion, and someone said once "power corrupts".

    Is it ok to notify the community about how the leader feels and where he's headed from a medical perspective? Yes. But, is the official changelog of the distribution the right place to do it? Would such a thing be done in a commercial product?

    1. Re:Benevolent Dictator Attitude by RenHoek · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Hmmm I think the benevolent dictator argument is a good one, but you forget one think. As democracy protects us (in principle) against politicians going corrupt after getting elected, so does the GPL protect us from benevolent dictators going bad..

      If the 'people' no longer wish to live under the benevolent dictators rule, then they can just pack up the 'country' (=software) and start one of their own. If the rest of the people agree that the dictator has gone corrupt, then they will flock to the new distribution, leaving the old corrupt dictator with nothing to rule over.

      So I don't think giving health reports in a changelog is going to have the people up in arms.

  2. From TFA... by md81544 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    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.


    This struck me... I use Slack on two *really slow* PCs (233 Mhz) and it makes them perform just fine. And yet I've never paid Pat a dime. I think it's time I started a subscription. What about you?
  3. Infective endocarditis by Fredge · · Score: 5, Funny

    One of Pat's logs mentions that he was diagnosed with and being treated for infective endocarditis. The medical literature I've read informally refers to that disease as IE.

    I think we all know what IE can do to your system. I would have thought Pat would have known better than to mess with it. Perhaps he should spend a little more time reading Slashdot? At any rate, the cure is pretty simple.

  4. Re:Health status : Finally ! by DarkTempes · · Score: 5, Interesting

    you really don't understand the current state of medical doctors in the states then...

    most don't CARE about every looking for the obscure. they're good at taking care of the low end stuff (a one week virus, a cold) with advice or some small medication, and the high end immediate life threatening stuff (surgery, cancer) but if it comes to some obscure middle-ranged life degrading disease or problem they tend to just do their normal battery of blood tests and then say "you're fine, it's all in your head!"

    and so then you must do doctor shopping.
    you think people like wasting their time and money utterly with a doctor? they just HAVE to. and they tend to self-diagnose cause the doctor doesn't do his job and diagnose you himself. the medical profession is one of the few BUISNESS professions where you PAY MONEY and are not guarenteed RESULTS of ANY KIND.

    I did the whole game, went around for two years with NMH [neurally mediated hypotension] before a cardiologist finally diagnosed me and gave me the proper medicine. First went to my primary care physican, she was just like "yes i know your life sucks and you're losing tons of weight and you look like you're dying but i have no clue so go elsewhere!" and that was basically the same thing, either they didn't know and they didn't care or they just wanted me to see a psych professional (which i saw many of and they all said i was just fine mentally for a person in my condition)
    it's easy to judge something until it actually happens to you...
    </rant>