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LWN in Trouble

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the o-negative-cash-needed-stat dept.

DanDan writes: "It seems that Linux Weekly News may be on the rocks. Tucows has cut support and they have lost their Senior Editor. It would be sad to see them go." Anybody who has bright ideas or cash burning a hole in your pocket should check out their discussion list.

9 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. Sell Stuff by Bonker · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Not content, mind you, but souvineirs, t-shirts, hats, CD's, maybe even LWN branded generic hardware or media.

    "See, this isn't just your everyday average spool of CD's, it's a Linux Weekly News spool of CD's."

    Seriously, I hadn't been to the LWN website before this, but it doesn't look like they have a goodies section like any other geek website who tries to stay afloat, /. included with all the 'Thinkgeek.com' stuff.

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  2. Subscriptions by Red+Aardvark+House · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Just a quick glance at the discussion list showed a good number of posters suggesting a subscription. Though it seems obvious, just pay for the product, subscriptions also offer another benefit: Payment in advance. This will ensure a steady stream of cash for production of the magazine.

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    1. Re:Subscriptions by blakestah · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Just a quick glance at the discussion list showed a good number of posters suggesting a subscription. Though it seems obvious, just pay for the product, subscriptions also offer another benefit: Payment in advance. This will ensure a steady stream of cash for production of the magazine.

      Few people think it could or would work that way. Most people will go somewhere else if a subscription model is used.

      The most obvious solution is for someone who would benefit from a solid linux news site like lwn to pick it up. IBM could fund it. Or HP. Or VA linux. Or Red Hat. Or some combination of them. Their expenses basically mean paying four people full-time.
      Unfortunately, it is more likely they will be going under. I wonder what will happen to /. when the same thing happens to VA Linux in another year?

  3. Tucows and GPL? by warmcat · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Hm, I wondered if Tucows was in trouble a couple of weeks ago. I submitted a GPL Windows app I wrote (Nographer) in the hope they would include it on their site, and it was rejected without explanation.

    As I think the app is pretty neat (it is a HTTP NNTP bridge, effectively turning USENET into a website), and they later sent a couple of emails boasting about how I could pay to improve my visibility on their site, I had a sneaking suspicion maybe GPL software was not quite what they had based their business plan on.

    Actually there seems to be something of an impedence mismatch althogther having Windows and GPL in the same sentance.

    1. Re:Tucows and GPL? by chrysalis · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Tucows has a new "exciting offer", for software authors. They can now get "new customers", watch "competition's software" and "purchase keywords". Submiting software now means buying one of their "bronze, silver or gold accounts". The more you pay, the more visibility you get.
      This totally breaks free software rules.
      Have a look at this post .
      What authors are now seeing when they want to submit something to Tucows is this page .

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    2. Re:Tucows and GPL? by BlueUnderwear · · Score: 4, Interesting
      I submitted a GPL Windows app I wrote (Nographer) in the hope they would include it on their site, and it was rejected without explanation.

      Same thing happened to me with a Linux app. I replied, asking for a reason (just in case it was something silly, which would be easily correctible). No answer.

      However, the funny thing is that they still kept sending me spam, about how I could upgrade the placement of my app by sending them $500... and boasting about their some zillions of hits per month. Then another mail apologizing the first was wrong, that it was actually zillions of hits per week. I replied to the spam saying there was still the issue with my app. No answer (predictably).

      Then somebody contacted me with a question about another application that I already had on tucows... and I brought up the subject of the new app up again. Eventually, after a couple of e-mail exchanges the guy suggested me to resubmit it, and lo and behold, it got accepted this time. Persistence pays ;-)

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  4. Archives by Boudewijn · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If LWN goes, where go their archives? A lot
    of Linux history has been recorded in issues
    of LWN, to say nothing of the penguin gallery.

  5. Re:capitalism at work by stephend · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Profit and Quality are not equivalent, or even proportional:

    Debian GNU/Linux does not make a profit, therefore the community does not value them.

    Microsoft makes huge profits, therefore their products must be a a very high quality.

    There's more to life than money.

  6. Subscription model that could work (wunderground) by Brian+Stretch · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Weather Underground has a neat subscription model: pay $5/year and they shut off the ads. Ads are a minor annoyance on my cable modem feed, but I subscribed just because they're my favorite weather site. LWN might want to charge a bit more, and/or make shutting off the ads a user-selectable option (targeted ads can be informative), and definitely offer payment via PayPal as well as credit cards, but it's the most plausible revenue model I've seen.