Patrick Volkerding Back to Work

AndreaP writes "Patrick Volkerding, the maintainer of Slackware Linux, is apparently recovering from his health problems and is back to work. From the ChangeLog of Slackware-Current: 'I'm back in California and I'm happy to let you all know that I'm feeling much better. :-) Here are a few updates so you can see that I'm trying to get back into the swing of things. Hopefully 10.1 won't be too far off ...'"

Welcome Back Pat

[MoThugz]

...I for one, hopes that he and his family will be in good health always.

I guess this is as good a Christmas present one could wish for. Health really is much more meaningful than wealth.

Cheers from a happy Slacker :)

WTF

[evel aka matt]

So, WTF happened to him? Miraculous recovery from unknown symptoms, or what? One minute he's dying, and now he's just dandy. Chicken soup? What? Did he say anywhere what he had, how it was cured, or anything?

Re:Impossible!

[bersl2]

You had enough time to look and then post the link.

GO FIX IT YOU LAZY BUM!

(Then again, I probably could have fixed it in the time it took to complain.)

Re:So... that's it?

[Anonymous Coward]

No it doesn't. It says he's better now, but there's no real explanation of what his mystery illness was and what the treatment entailed.

Re:So... that's it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, considering that he told the entire world he was sick (in detail) and asked for our help in finding out the problem/treatment, it'd be nice if filled us in on it now that he knows. Perhaps someone else will have the same problem he did?

Re:Cancer probably

[Limburgher]

. . .which is totally his decision. While I'm hightly curious and even more concerned, it's None Of Our Damn Business. I can think of nothing more private.

It's enough for me that he's feeling better, and presumably on the road to recovery. Best wishes and good health, Pat.

No.

[aluminum_geek]

You're wrong.

Patrick said (in his original "someone help me" email) that the plaque/toothbrush scenario was one if his theories. Since then, he has not mentioned it in any of his updates (that I could find).

All he mentions is that he wants to thank his doctor, and he's feeling better, etc, etc.

Personally, he always sounded like a bit of a hypochondriac prima donna, and I was anxiously waiting to be proven wrong.

Re:Great!

[MikeCapone]

I'm also glad to learn that he's better.

It might be corny, but I don't know the guy and yet I thought about his health a couple of times a week during this whole episode.

Hope that he has fully recovered soon!

Oh, and Slackware rules!

Re:Cancer probably

[Limburgher]

At the point you make the matter public, it DOES become the publics business.

While in principle I agree with you, think of it this way: If you come to me for advice meeting women, does that entitle me to watch the resulting sexual activity?

Ignoring of course the issue of whether I WANT to. . .:)

Re:No.

[Lost Race]

He knew it was a crazy idea; he was desperate and brainstorming, hoping for any kind of clue as to what was happening to him. It's better to have lots of crazy ideas than no ideas at all. Obviously it's best to have the right idea, but that can be very hard to find, particularly when you're not an expert and all the experts keep telling you there's no problem, when there very very clearly is a problem. Patrick Volkerding is no prima donna, and no hypochondriac. If he says he's seriously ill, he's seriously ill.

This just goes to show you...

[eeg3]

...Projects that are centered directly around one person are a bad, bad idea. OpenBSD would suffer from this, too... specifically because Theo owns copyrights and whatnot. What happens when he quits, dies, or gives up?

All major projects should have elected core members, and shouldn't be dependent on them.

So WTF was wrong??

[EllynGeek]

Come on, man! You spray the Internet with in-depth descriptions of your symptoms, theories, research, and how you ran from one doctor to the next when you couldn't get an answer within five minutes... and now you don't say what you have, or what fixed it? sheesh dood. All those people who expressed concern and genuine care for you, and that's the best you can do? Not cool.

One guy gets sick and an OS project suffers??

[Pvt_Waldo]

If one guy can get sick and potentially torpedo an entire open source project, then just how well is the model being applied?

As far as a user goes, what's the difference between some guy getting sick, and some company going under? To the user they are both left stranded with a product that potentially doesn't get bug fixes or updates.

I'm not saying OS is flawed, but just that in this case, it makes me SERIOUSLY not want to even consider this distro. It all depends on one guy seems to be the message here.

Re:This just goes to show you...

[Anonymous Coward]

All major projects should have elected core members, and shouldn't be dependent on them.

OpenBSD exists today for the simple fact that elected core members are a stupid idea. Or don't you remember how Theo was kicked off the NetBSD project by the (democratically elected) core group?

Face it-- being popular enough to win an election doesn't mean that you know jack shit about technology, how to manage it, how to develop it, or where to take it. It means that you're popular-- nothing more or less.

Theo de Raadt would not win a popularity contest. Come to think of it, Richard Stallman probably wouldn't win one, either. Theo has a history of being short with people who waste his time. RMS is known for being a bit of a zealot.

But you know what? I'm glad RMS is in charge of the Free Software Foundation, and Theo is in charge of OpenBSD. Why? Because they're good at what they do:

* Theo's leadership and technical skills have helped create products that have raised the bar, security-wise (OpenSSH, for instance, has all but destroyed the telnet protocol).

* RMS has taken the FSF from a little-known organization that sold EMACS tapes back in the mid-1980s to a multi-national organization that has helped fight software patents, defend programmers' rights, AND develop a wide variety of free-as-in-speech tools and programs for anybody to use.

Theo and RMS are perfect examples of why election isn't always the best policy. Where would the internet be without OpenSSH? What would have happened to Free software without the GNU project? We wouldn't have had these things if it weren't for the leadership of thoroughly un-electable project leaders.

So you'll forgive me for not taking "elected core members" seriously. I like good software designed by excellent technologists. Not mediocre, design-by-committee crap that fits some ideal of democratic development processes.

Re:No.

[LinuxInDallas]

His point was valid and I didn't sense a bit of aggression. Fact is Patrick made his sickness very public and stated how he had done oh so much research to discover what the problem was. Now he is better and no word as to what it was that fixed him up? Sounds awefully fishy.

Was it real? Then let's take the open source approach: Tell us what was wrong so that we can get that in the public domain so that the next poor guy/gal with this sickness can google to find a cure. Why would he be holding back if it was real?

Re:What details?

[RedBear]

My theory on the lack of details is that they did all the tests and finally convinced him he's a nutbar hypochondriac and doesn't want the world to know that he got everyone all concerned about something that was all in his head.

Put the pitchforks down, folks, it's a joke!

But seriously, I'm one of those who thinks those who care about this issue should be given a little better status update than, "hey, I'm feeling better". It just seems kind of rude to leave so many people in the dark like that after getting them involved in the story. A lot of people have an emotional stake in his health status now that he has invited them in with long-winded stories of going to the brink of death. This sort of thing needs what the shrinks call "closure". Even for those who couldn't care less if he had lived or died there is natural human curiosity at work keeping them wondering what the root cause of the problem was and what has happened to solve it.

Patrick Volkerding needs to step up and give out a bit more information.