Patrick Volkerding

Patrick Volkerding (born October 20, 1966), is an American computer scientist of German descent, also known to many as "The Man" ), is recognized as the founder and main developer of the Slackware Linux distribution. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Moorhead State University in 1993, the same year that the first version of Slackware was released.

Slackware Linux Project

Together with Chris Lumens, David Cantrell and other volunteers they started the Slackware Linux Project. Due to the lack of a revenue stream from the sale of their publisher, Walnut Creek CDROM, to BSDi (which was eventually sold to Wind River Systems), those people left that project. In recent years Patrick Volkerding has been running Slackware with the help of various volunteers and testers. Volkerding releases new versions of Slackware usually once a year.

Slack

Patrick is a member/affiliate of the Church of SubGenius. The use of the word "Slack" in Slackware is a tribute to J. R. "Bob" Dobbs:

"..I'll admit that it was SubGenius inspired. In fact, back in the 2.0 through 3.0 days we used to print the "Bob" Dobbs head on each CD."

Which in Spanish translates to "I'm going to admit that it was inspired by SubGenius. In fact, in the times between 2.0 and 3.0 we used to print the head of "Bob" Dobbs on every CD".

Personal life

In 2004 he fell ill with a rare lung infection which seriously affected his physical performance, causing Slackware development to mostly halt. Fortunately he recovered and returned to the project.

Patrick Volkerding is currently married to his wife Andrea, and they have been parents since November 22, 2005, of their first daughter named Cecilia. He is also known to be a heavy beer drinker: In early versions of Slackware he would beg his users to send him a bottle of beer from their local town in appreciation of his work.