TDLR; Patrick Volkerding (BDfL and developer of Slackware) needs financial assistance to work on Slackware but the donation button and proceeds of sales of DVDs and merchandise do not go directly to PV at present, and he has asked the company to remove the donation link.
PV's statement is at post 8 in the thread, direct link below
Oh man that's really terrible to hear. I remember starting my linux journey with Slackware and 13 years later I couldn't imagine using anything other than linux for my work!
That is exactly the problem. The statement from PV suggests that he has had the donate link removed from Slackware's web site as it pointed to the company, and PV is not receiving donations directly from the company.
All we can do at present is monitor the tail of the linuxquestions thread for the appearance of something like a direct Paypal account or whatever.
Seems like yours is the only one (~$US500) so far. People will probably need confirmation of the address directly from the person in question first though, so to safe. :)
No, I did not. Sad to see that I made a post on LQ to try to stop someone from taking advantage of me, and a new person attempts to use that as a new opportunity to rip me off.
I appreciate everyone's concerns and I'm glad to see people are internet-street-smart enough not to fall for this. Unless you see it on the website, or LQ (from me), or in the ChangeLog, or with a GPG signature, remain skeptical. And don't believe anyone who says they are collecting money to give it to me. After all, that's what the store was saying.
Back when CDs were a thing and VERY slow modems were the norm you could find Slackware in bookstores, places like CompUSA, RadioShack, Circuit City, etc.
This was many folks' first exposure to Linux, Open Source Software, etc. and led many to pursue computer related professions.
Reading stories like this is really disheartening. This shows how much trust you need to put into the company you're working with to get such a store running. It seems it took a really long time til he got the actual sales figures and could know that they ripped him off.
As much as one might despise big players like patreon, PayPal etc. For being huge players and probably also big in collecting user data they just don't pull shit like this. They might suddenly change policies and conditions which sucks in its own way but they're simply not just keeping your money without telling you.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 47.7 ms ] threadTDLR; Patrick Volkerding (BDfL and developer of Slackware) needs financial assistance to work on Slackware but the donation button and proceeds of sales of DVDs and merchandise do not go directly to PV at present, and he has asked the company to remove the donation link.
PV's statement is at post 8 in the thread, direct link below
https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/donati...
So how would one go about donating to him?
All we can do at present is monitor the tail of the linuxquestions thread for the appearance of something like a direct Paypal account or whatever.
https://www.blockchain.com/en/btc/address/1H4aJjxzKe4DdmiUXF...
Seems like yours is the only one (~$US500) so far. People will probably need confirmation of the address directly from the person in question first though, so to safe. :)
I appreciate everyone's concerns and I'm glad to see people are internet-street-smart enough not to fall for this. Unless you see it on the website, or LQ (from me), or in the ChangeLog, or with a GPG signature, remain skeptical. And don't believe anyone who says they are collecting money to give it to me. After all, that's what the store was saying.
The article below may help...
https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20160725#slackware
This was many folks' first exposure to Linux, Open Source Software, etc. and led many to pursue computer related professions.
For instance you can see this CD has Patrick's signature: http://www.cdaccess.com/html/pc/slack.htm
As much as one might despise big players like patreon, PayPal etc. For being huge players and probably also big in collecting user data they just don't pull shit like this. They might suddenly change policies and conditions which sucks in its own way but they're simply not just keeping your money without telling you.