This is from Slackware wikipedia page. If this is true, this could be the next logical step to increase some development involvement and noise maybe? Patrick should be also thinking about the future of Slackware right?
Am just an outsider since I don't have skin in the game. But Slackware is not a distro that comes in your conversations more often and I am in a lot of Linux communities. And the comments reflect the same as well. Maybe this could improve the scenario. Again, this is with the best intentions. Please ignore if the comments doesn't sit right with you. :)
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Also, I don't think Slackware should be like GNU/Linux distros or alter course radically. But I think a small modernization of the project could help everyone who wants to keep the Slackware way of doing it alive.
They have steadfastly refused to move to more 'modern' development practices (they have been arguing about it since the mid 90s). With simple things like issue tracking. That is fine, it works for them. But after a few years I got tired of spinning my own just to have something kind of current (think that has changed). But I bailed out, when they kicked out the dudes who made it into a distro that was easier to update with some simple commands (like apt). That is something OS at the time had but them. I gave up. I just moved onto whatever my employer decided we were going to use (usually redhat or debian based). I enjoyed my time using it, but it became a chore to maintain. So I moved on to things that had automated some of that. They may have even fixed some of the issues I had with them. But I no longer have the time to bother going back.
I have seen this pattern with a few projects. Basically whoever runs the project just does not want to mess with it. That is fine. But it really holds their project back. It works fine when you have 1-2 people working on it. But you add a few dozen with people dipping in and out randomly you need to add some control to the chaos. One project I watched the main dev go kicking and screaming how it would not help. The project is now clicking along pretty good. He now does not feel like he is all alone fighting the world. He has people to help him and can track it easily. He even stated he should have done it sooner.