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This is fairly sizable. Michael McLagan, better known to most readers as the brave soul responsible for Linux.org has written a response to the criticism he has recieved lately about the web site. I feel Linux.org is an important resource and Michael is working hard to do a good job. I think it's important that we work together to make sure that Linux.org is all it should be. I guess the first step is to hit the link below and read what he has to say, and talk about it. The following is written by Michael McLagan to help address the issues at linux.org

Recently there has been controversy over the new site layout and design, as well as the Ziff Davis article. To address some of these issues, I am making a public statement about linux.org and Linux Online in general. I hope to address the various points raised in the discussions from last week, and head off a few questions which will no doubt come.

Below is the first page of our advertising material sent out to companies who ask us about placing banner ads up on the web site. I believe it will answer a lot of the questions about how/why/where the domain is going. Please take some time, as repetative as it may seem, to read it thru.

Most of you probably don't even know who I am. I'll take that as a blessing, because being famous isn't my desire. I will say that there isn't a single one of you out there with the kernel tree installed that doesn't have my work on your hard drive. I've made several kernel contributions, one large, several small. I've also worked with several commercial operations in getting Linux drivers available for their equipment, most notably DigiBoard serial products.

Does that make me more important than any other kernel contributor? Absolutely not. It doesn't even put me into the same league as gentlemen like Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, Remi Card, Leonard Zubkoff, Theodore Tso and a whole list of others who I can't take the space to mention. Does it make me more important than the user of Linux? Again, i don't feel so. What it does, though, is give me some standing in establishing a corner of the Linux world and maintaining it.

The long and the short of it is the buck stops here. As much as some do not believe it, there is a person (other than myself) responsible for the day to day business of maintaining the site. As far as the design and graphics go, they are my work. It's my hardware, my configurations, my cgi software, my bandwidth and my money. Despite all of that, I dedicate my time and effort and that of the webmaster, to the promotion of an OS that I believe in.

I'm doing my level best, in my opinion, to achieve the goals outlined in the advertising materials we distribute. If you have contributions you want to make, comments that you feel are important, topics that you don't think we are covering then I encourage you to step forward and fill the webmaster@linux.org mailbox with those comments. We welcome them, and we act on them. I've had this discussion with our largest detractor, Vincent Jannelle over the last few days, and he seems intent to do his own thing. I told him, as I tell you, we will give his work all due consideration, and take from it what fits in with our own goals.

I apologize for the length of this, but I beleive that it goes a long way to clarifying my position as the maintainer and controller of the linux.org domain. I hope it has answered some of your questions, and addressed some of your concerns. I will respond, time permitting, to comments that are sent to me at Michael.McLagan@Linux.Org. I thank you for taking the time to read these comments.

Issues from recent discussions

• The Logo.

  The unfortunate problem I had was the inability to get the font used in the original work. With the new site up, and people noticing/commenting on the penguin, I put in 3 days to get the Dubiel font working so I could re-create the logo. As you will all notice now, there's a new image online now which is a faithful reproduction of Larry Ewing's penguin.

• The background.

  Within a day of it going online, I replaced the background image of the penguin with one that was much lighter in appearance. This made it less emposing on the background, and comments to the webmaster began to fall off about it.

• The colours.

  Some of you wonder if I'm colour blind, or just plain blind. Well, I would invite you to visit (for the next 2 days only) the test site where we posted up some different versions of the homepage you see now. These are all identical except for the colour choices. Over 2 dozen people were asked to visit the site and provide feedback, selecting the colour of graphic, headers, and background they prefered, and what would make the best combination. The result was the site you see online today.

  I have no intention of revealing who participated in the viewing of these choices, or what their comments were. One of them, Jeff Claggett, identified himself as a participant in his post about the site. The others may and will probably remain anonymous. I will go so far as to say that very prominant members of the Linux community were invited and responded in our survey.

• Pages are slow.

  Claims the pages were slow on the 4th are entirely true. That day, the server jumped from delivering it's average of 650k accesses, 72k page views to 800k accesses and 85k page views. Additionally, there were massive numbers of 404 errors for people accessing graphics on cached pages, causing our badurl document to be presented.

  The machine itself is nothing less than a Dual Pentium 90, 128M of RAM, 2.1G SCSI drive. On it's normal days, it sings along like a well oiled top and generally delivers pages in a timely fashion. The one day everyone was busy looking at it, it didn't handle the load. As our numbers of accesses grow, we are planning to create a dual server situation, which will alleviate the problem.

• The page looks crappy in ...

  Taken directly from the server's log files, we have the following:

       Access
    Hits  Percent  ID
  -----------------------------
  413266   62.99%  Mozilla
  221824   33.81%  MSIE
    5253    0.80%  Opera/3.0
    2183    0.33%  Teleport Pro
    1693    0.26%  Lynx
    1467    0.22%  Wget
    1224    0.19%  GETWWW-ROBOT
    1074    0.16%  Konqueror
     657    0.10%  SQA SiteCheck
  
   ...
  
  ------  ------
  656116  100.00%
  

  Seems to me that we should be addressing the needs of the majority of the clients that come to the site. I believe we do.

• Poor content

  This, I must admit, confounds me. I believe the content we have here is a good general reference to what's out there for information on Linux. It is undergoing a bit of a re-organization into some more manageable sections, and hopefully will be more useful/accessible to people in the future.

  We host what I believe to be the most up to date and complete list of Linux user groups worldwide. That, in and of itself, makes Linux Online a valuable resource to the new Linux user, to see where they can meet like minded people in their corner of the world. The list is kept up to date by a constant stream of user input and our own research on search engines and the like.

  Even if after all that has been said, we are here to support the community. If there's a piece of content that is missing, please send it in as a submission. It will usually show up at the next week's update unless something busy is going on and it takes an extra week. We incorporate every project, application, distribution and general link brought to our attention.

• Site doesn't change

  Oh that it were true that the site could be neglected for some short period of time. Unfortunately, if the email to webmaster is left even for a day, it reaches into the unmanagable range. A week would present enough email to drown an individual trying to deal with it. Linux Online maintains 2 web sites, www.linux.org and a development site. The latter is blocked from access to the pubic appropriate security checks. During the week, ongoing changes are made to the development site. Monday morning, at 4:45AM Eastern time, context diffs are created from last week's site, and the diff and images are copied onto www.linux.org as the week's update. After this process is done, URLWatch is run and the email notices are sent out.

• Banner ads? How dare he...

  Lets face it. We all have families to feed. The guy we buy our computers from, the backbone Internet providers, the electical companies, etc. As outlined above, in the very material that you can get by sending an email to sales@linux.org. I'd like to get costs covered as a bare minimum. I honestly can't see how any one of you out there can consider it inappropriate or unusual that having the site pay for it's hardware, T1, power, space and staff time is a problem.

  Over and above that, I believe that some non-distribution centric marketting would be a very good thing. That's where the next level of cash gained from the ads would go. FreeBSD has Walnut Creek CDROM buying banners for it on various search engines and the like. My intention is to gather the resources of the commercial companies in the Linux field, take some of their marketting money, and use it to market the IDEA OF LINUX, something that will help us ALL.

• Other sites

  I've never suggested that the world should look to any specific site to get their Linux information. In fact, centralization like that would be almost impossible. I am trying to do what I can to make that happen with an internet spider/search engine and thru our own efforts.

  Even with that, we will never be SlashDot or FreshMeat or any other live, minute to minute news/information site. It's not part of our current goals. Our direction is towards new users. I've recently put a "Getting Started" area on the home page with the top few questions that the webmaster gets in email daily. The subpage contains a growing list of other similar questions that are, we believe, one of the big reasons people will come to the site.

  If you want to link to another site, then by all means do so. I'm not holding a gun to people's head demanding they provide their main link to us, nor will I ever do so. As with the poll done here recently, we all have differing opinions, and it's our diversity that makes us what we are.

• PC Week Article

  Several pieces of information were quoted in the article by John Dodge in PC Week. The webmaster followed links off the web site and found the following information, which is the most likely source of his information.

  1. Linux Counter http://counter.li.org/

     Text from the top of the page:

     62481 users registered
     29458 machines registered
     My guess at the number of Linux users: Six million

  2. Linux Myth Dispeller http://www.KenAndTed.com/KensBookmark/linux/index.html

     This is the clumsily produced FAQ he refers to. The grammer is poor, but it DOES dispell a lot of myths IF someone actually reads it.

Advertising Introduction

In 1991, Linus Torvalds quietly started a revolution in the computer industry. With his first postings to usenet and release of source code on his ftp site, Linux was born. Over the course of time a myriad of different programmers, designers, and others have worked with Linus to build an industrial strength kernel, and surrounded it with all the tools necessary to turn it into a complete operating system.

Sometime in 1992, Michael McLagan became involved with Linux as a user. After downloading and installing one of the very early distributions (SLS for those who remember), it was clear that there was serious potential for Linux to grow. He began developing drivers and networking code for the Linux kernel. Over time, other companies developed distributions, and Linux began gaining acceptance around the world. However, Linux lacked a central organization to give it a presence on the internet, and to promote its use in corporate environments.

LINUX.ORG was registered with the InterNIC in May 1994. The web site went online with a single page via a 28.8k modem. Links pointed to a site maintained by Liem Bahneman at the University of Washington. This material was eventually moved to Specialized Systems Consultants. In August 1997 Linux Online designed an entirely new site with local content and a broader coverage of the activities in the Linux community.

The mission of Linux Online is to promote Linux to the world. Outlined below is the plan to accomplish this goal. Phase 1 is currently ongoing. Future phases will be funded in part by the banner ad programs outlined below.

1. Create and maintain a comprehensive website. An updated design to be released on June 1st. Updates to the site are done weekly. As staffing allows, more frequent updates are planned.
2. Purchasing general Linux advertisements in trade magazines, internet search engines, and other highly visible web sites on the
3. Purchasing general Linux advertisements in trade magazines, internet search engines, and other highly visible web sites on the Internet. These advertisements will promote Linux as a viable platform for corporate MIS environments, without making reference to any particular vendors.
4. Organize and present seminars in various U.S., Canadian, and International cities, aimed at information technology and management level decision makers within the business community. These one to two day seminars will present information showing Linux in use in large organizations, the benefits of using an Open Source product, various products from Linux vendors, and local information on consultants who can assist in a smooth transition to Linux.

Linux Online believes that widespread promotion will assist all organizations involved with Linux, from application developers, help desk and installation/setup consultants, kernel developers, hardware manufacturers, and other commercial endeavours. In much the same way that the kernel developers have worked together on source code, working together on promoting Linux will exceed the sum of individuals acting alone.

Shane McLochlainn writes "Thanks to Mark Derricutt, The Marineland of New Zealand Aquarium have a Little Blue Penguin (Sphenisciformes Spheniscidae) renamed Linus. More details here. Linus joins the ranks of other distinguished penguins bearing the same name. See Linus, the Black-footed Jackass Penguin at Bristol Zoo, UK."

Well folks, the place that everyone links the word Linux to by default has received a fancy overhaul. Gone is the tacky yellow and blue, replaced with a much cleaner design. Glad to see it.

Linus, being the kind hearted developer he is, decided to release Linux 2.1.94 to the usual place. Only a few KB away from 11MB, updates include sound documentation, MAJOR sound updates, and init fixes for those having trouble with 2.1.93 on non-x86 platforms.

Bart Blanquart sent us a report from CeBIT. He says "I just got back from CeBIT and thought I'd share these things:

Digital didn't think it would be nice/necessary/neat to have a Linux-box on their display (but they did like to show off with Titanic-was-rendered-on-Alpha-stuff). Linux International had a booth there which got quite some attention, but S.u.S.E. got lots more (I don't know what they had in their booth - it was always too crowded to get near it) Besides L.I. and S.u.S.E. there where some other Linux-vendors (or vendors of Linux-based products) present, so the penguins seemed to be omni-present".

As AMD and Intel report disappointing earnings, the price of computers continues its downwards spiral. Intel certainly did not anticipate the success of the sub-$1000 category, but AMD and Cyrix have failed to capitalize on the opportunity. The problem is that a bitter war of attrition will hurt the smaller players just entering the field. But then, perhaps they will address the lack of new features to excite one enough to buy a new PC. Or perhaps, they will find a solution to the root cause of high computer cost: bloatware.

I love the internet. Check out this page sent to us by Joey Hess. Basically it does a search of AltaVista for various OS's, and the word 'sucks' or 'rules'. Then it displays the totals. What a crazy idea, of course since this method shows Linux's obvious superiority, I support this method 100% *grin*.

It's great to see that RedHat Linux has won InfoWorld's Product of the Year in the Operating System catagory for a second year in a row. And if that doesn't surprise you enough, the award for Best Tech Support was given to the Linux User Community. I bet a large number of readers of Slashdot deserve a part of this award. I know I'm amazed at the number of Linux Developers and Users that I can email and get help back within days. I only wish I could better help everyone that emailed me. Congrats to RedHat, and to Everyone Out There who made the other award happen. Let's make 98 even better.

This is the first of hopefully many Slashdot.org Editorials. In addition to just reporting the news, the Slashdot Team really wishes to try to put out new ideas, or share other information that our readers may find helpful, interesting, or entertaining.

We're standing at an amazing crossroad here. The Free Software Foundation, and especially the Linux OS have gained amazing ground. The mainstream press (eg the ZiffDavis marketing monopoly) actually now regularly acknowledge Linux along side MacOS and Windows as being a "Real" Operating system.

And then there is the browser world, where the race was once one horse, then hundreds, and now 2. Microsoft and Netscape have been battling it out for some time now, and Netscape's once unstoppable 70% market share has begun crumbling.

Meanwhile the Free Software world is facing a battle of its own. The Commercial browser world has been reduced to the big ones, but the free world is producing Mneumonic, Gzilla, and various other smaller projects. Many talented programmers slave away on these products, but each day, Microsoft gains ground.

Add the final piece of data to the mix:Netscape is losing money as well as browser market share. What's a company to do? Maybe the solution is simple:GPL Netscape's Source Code.

So now that you've stopped laughing, let's talk about this seriously for a moment. Let's look at why Netscape should seriously consider this:

Talented programmers from around the world would actively improve Netscape's browser. The Free Software Movement has proven that if some control is enforced at the center (eg Linus) programs can develop communally. Netscape would not have to pay most of the development cost of their software. Coordination, and key programmers would be essential, but minor once coders around the world join in.

Netscape needs browser dominance to fuel its server market, and to remain synonymous with the Internet. If current trends continue, MS will = the Internet in another year.

Netscape is losing money on the browser market. They need to release their browser for free to compete with Microsoft anyway.

Source code would allow compilation on other systems- say a Pentium optimized version, or whatever other optimizations become available for platform X.

Excellent Publicity generated by such an original move would earn Netscape respect from the Free Software junkies who often have somewhat negative feelings towards Netscape. These Free Software Junkies are gaining control of much of the world's IS departments, and Netscape's good name will get them places in these corporate worlds.

So that's all well and good for Netscape, but what about the rest of us. Netscape has taken a lot of heat for its gapping shortcomings. In particular its bloated size and slow performance. Why would the Free Software World want to take on this project?

GPL means we would have a state of the art free browser.

Netscape could be ported to GTK or Qt for faster performance and lower memory requirements than Motif.

Various web browser efforts could focus on a single project (which could have many faces) which already has so many of the features they need. Instead of these projects dividing the effort, they could unify.

The superior programming talents of the world's programmers would make Netscape the superior browser, which would win over converts back from Microsoft even on Wintel boxes where MS is gaining support.

New browsers derived from Netscape for more specific tasks could share things like an HTML rendering engine for commonality.

Now I realize that there are problems. Large parts of Netscape's code aren't really Netscape's to give away. The "about:" screen of Netscape Communicator lists 12 companies besides Netscape including Apple, Macromedia, Symantec and many others. Perhaps these modules are removed. Perhaps these modules could also GPLd. Netscape does need to maintain the primary code base, and finding someone with the charisma of Linus to steerhead the development of code from hundreds of people will me a challange. Then there are problems with large portions of the Free Software world disliking Netscape. I really hope this could change, especially if they were given the opportunity to maintain it.

I really think this could be the answer to a lot of problems. With the power of an Internet full of programmers, even Microsoft's Billions of R&D dollars would be threatened. And we would be guaranteed a real choice even if IE4 becomes the standard on Windows boxes.

What do you think?

by Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda
malda@slashdot.org