Patrick Volkerding
E195186
Patrick Volkerding is an American software engineer best known as the founder and long-time maintainer of the Slackware Linux distribution, one of the oldest surviving Linux distros.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Patrick Volkerding canonical | 4 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1724400 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Patrick Volkerding Context triple: [Slackware, developer, Patrick Volkerding]
-
A.
Theo de Raadt
Theo de Raadt is a Canadian software engineer best known as the founder and leader of the OpenBSD and OpenSSH projects, and as a prominent advocate for free and secure software.
-
B.
Andrew Tridgell
Andrew Tridgell is an Australian computer programmer best known for creating the Samba software suite and contributing extensively to free and open-source software.
-
C.
Eric Raymond
Eric Raymond is an American software developer, open-source advocate, and author best known for his influential essay collection "The Cathedral and the Bazaar," which helped popularize and legitimize the open-source software movement.
-
D.
Phil Zimmermann
Phil Zimmermann is an American cryptographer best known as the creator of Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), a widely used email encryption software that helped popularize strong cryptography for the public.
-
E.
Werner Koch
Werner Koch is a German free software developer best known as the principal author and maintainer of the GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG) encryption software.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Patrick Volkerding Target entity description: Patrick Volkerding is an American software engineer best known as the founder and long-time maintainer of the Slackware Linux distribution, one of the oldest surviving Linux distros.
-
A.
Theo de Raadt
Theo de Raadt is a Canadian software engineer best known as the founder and leader of the OpenBSD and OpenSSH projects, and as a prominent advocate for free and secure software.
-
B.
Andrew Tridgell
Andrew Tridgell is an Australian computer programmer best known for creating the Samba software suite and contributing extensively to free and open-source software.
-
C.
Eric Raymond
Eric Raymond is an American software developer, open-source advocate, and author best known for his influential essay collection "The Cathedral and the Bazaar," which helped popularize and legitimize the open-source software movement.
-
D.
Phil Zimmermann
Phil Zimmermann is an American cryptographer best known as the creator of Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), a widely used email encryption software that helped popularize strong cryptography for the public.
-
E.
Werner Koch
Werner Koch is a German free software developer best known as the principal author and maintainer of the GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG) encryption software.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (40)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Linux distribution maintainer
ⓘ
human ⓘ software engineer ⓘ |
| associatedWith |
Slackware
ⓘ
surface form:
Slackware project
|
| citizenship | American ⓘ |
| countryOfCitizenship | United States of America ⓘ |
| developed |
Slackware
ⓘ
Slackware ⓘ
surface form:
Slackware Linux distribution
|
| employer |
Slackware
ⓘ
surface form:
Slackware project
|
| familyName | Volkerding ⓘ |
| fieldOfWork |
Linux
ⓘ
free and open-source software ⓘ software engineering ⓘ |
| genre | Linux distribution development ⓘ |
| givenName | Patrick ⓘ |
| hasLongTermRole |
Slackware maintainer
ⓘ
Slackware project lead ⓘ |
| hasNotability |
Linux community
ⓘ
free and open-source software community ⓘ |
| influenced | Linux distribution ecosystem ⓘ |
| isBestKnownAs |
founder of the Slackware Linux distribution
ⓘ
long-time maintainer of the Slackware Linux distribution ⓘ |
| knownFor |
Slackware
ⓘ
Slackware ⓘ
surface form:
Slackware Linux distribution
|
| languageOfWorkOrName | English ⓘ |
| maintains | Slackware Linux distribution ⓘ |
| name | Patrick Volkerding self-link ⓘ |
| nationality | United States of America ⓘ |
| notableFor | creating one of the oldest surviving Linux distributions ⓘ |
| notableWork |
Slackware
ⓘ
surface form:
Slackware Linux
Slackware ⓘ
surface form:
Slackware Linux distribution
|
| occupation |
Linux distribution maintainer
ⓘ
software engineer ⓘ system administrator ⓘ |
| operatingSystemDeveloped |
Slackware
ⓘ
surface form:
Slackware Linux
|
| role |
founder of Slackware
ⓘ
lead developer of Slackware ⓘ maintainer of Slackware ⓘ |
| softwareEngineeringSpecialization |
Linux ecosystem
ⓘ
surface form:
Linux distributions
Unix-like operating systems ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Patrick Volkerding Description of subject: Patrick Volkerding is an American software engineer best known as the founder and long-time maintainer of the Slackware Linux distribution, one of the oldest surviving Linux distros.
Referenced by (4)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.