Slashdot Mirror
LWN in Trouble
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.
will you please be my friend?
Not content, mind you, but souvineirs, t-shirts, hats, CD's, maybe even LWN branded generic hardware or media.
/. included with all the 'Thinkgeek.com' stuff.
"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,
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
... he just went to lunch. He's missing, presumed fed.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
Eggplants can't help at all in this situation.
Eggplants!
ender-iii
"Anybody who has bright ideas or cash burning a hole in your pocket..."
Oh yeah, we're a dime a dozen... I'm happy I'm employeed, I don't have money to throw away...
And if you do have money to burn, please put it in Swiss bank account #144232422, and I'll make sure it gets to the folks over at... ummm... well you know who they are...
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
This shows again that the Open Source community is not immune against the current economic situation. It is really sad to see more and more of the sponts in the net vanish. Although they weren't even trying to make money out of it, they suffer, too.
I really hope lwn will go on with their good work!
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.
I like fire ants. They are very spicy!
...these types of pages could support themselves with four guys and a rackspace co-lo? I don't see why they can't again. I don't understand why they need the backing of Tucows to survive. If they've changed so much that they need the backing of a dot bomb to continue, maybe they should start fresh.
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
You thought MS had sort of nazi-esque methods? Well, I will now, in this brief essay, reveal to you the hidden truth of Linux, an joint Finnish-German Nazi conspiration for revenge against the victors of WW2. Let's look at the evidence.
During the second World War, Finland was a close allied to the Third Reich, as is clearly illustrated by this photo of a finnish military aircraft. After the defeat of the Axis Powers, a revantionist urge abounds in both countries.
Linux was written by Finnish stuent Linus Thorvalds, a member of the small Swedish-speaking minority of Finland, well known for it's white supremacist tendencies. In this article Thorvalds expresses his enthusiasm and admiration for the German-led KDE project. He also makes some unclear statements about the claims of Richard Stallman for calling the operating system GNU/Linux being invalid. Why is this? Obviously, the Nazi -and therefore Anti-Communist- Thorvalds here shows his support for his German allies against the Communist GNU and GNOME projects.
But what does this hideous Nazi conspiracy want? We cannot, at this point, know. But what we do know, is that Nazies are up to no good. To stop them from achieving whichever horrible goals they hav in mind, I would strongly discourage any use of the Linux kernel or the KDE. Instead, I would recomend the use of a truly democratic operating system.
Thank You.
And poke her, with the soft cushions!!!
Is this really the loss that the slash-dot editors would have you believe it is?
I submit to you that the answer is no. Their inability to be profitable is caused by either inefficient business practices (in which case another, more efficient will take their place if a profit can be made), or the "community" doesn't value them enough to support them financially, in which case their value is negligent.
anotheryay igpay atinlay ostpay!
Puh! +im3 2 g0!
Oh no, another Linux company is pretty much gone! What can you expect from a group of people who bitch when software isn't free?
I say we drive Richard Stallman's corpse onto a pike as a warning for other communists.
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.
This...isn't...Linux News?
Coulda sworn....*grumble*
(ducks behind asbestos wall)
My sigs always suck.
Mad propz to Ctulhu.
:o)
I'm certainly sad to see them go, but I get all my news from slashdot anyhow *g*... There are plenty of other news sources and lots about linux (hence part of their problem). So not a huge deal that this one didn't make it. Besides that, its highly probable someone else will pick it up.
its sad to see, and this message maybe labeled as a troll, but it do to the economics of today. Free software is not such a hot item. People are afriad of losing the profits, if they are not making money then why bother to invest in open source or free applications.
another lame site gone with the wind.
is a good thing.
There hasnt been a good site since Dave left
linuxtoday.com. Marty did his best, but 1 man
cant run the world by himself.
back to the topic:
LWN sucks. good bye! dont let my foot hit you
in the ass on your way out!!
of course, all this is a direct response for
making me click through 12 friggen times to
read a dam entry on their site.
both AOL and ICQ have been down for extended periods. anyone know whats going on? anything related to one month after sept. 11??
LWN was one of the first news sites (if not THE first) to cover linux at all! Back in the early days of the net being popular, LWN was the a great place to get a good summary of ALL the happenings in the world of Linux.
If they went to a subscription service, I'd probably be willing to get a subscription. They still do a good job of coverage.
Have you compiled your kernel today??
Consider this comparison of tipping services. Would you donate? How much? How often? Which is the best tipping service, does anybody have experience with these? What's better, subscription or tipping?
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
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.
I have worked for a couple of firms restructuring - and they are always difficult. I will list a couple of suggestions regarding restructuring and then some general strategy notes.
Restructuring
1. Do it as fast as you can.
If you need to reduce your overhead by $10,333 a month, which may not be easy but sure beats the alternative (chapter 11). The longer you wait, the more drastic the cuts will have to be. If you wait too long, cuts alone may not be enough to save the site.
Layoffs can do serious, long-term damage to a company's culture, but sometimes they're necessary. First think about freezing salaries, eliminating perks, postponing company parties, and so on. And if it turns out you can't save jobs without laying some people off, don't allow the process to drag on. Make all the necessary cuts at the same time, and then let the remaining employees know their jobs are secure. You will destroy morale--and lose good people--if everybody is wondering who will be the next to go.
2. Marketing is hit first in a recession
In a recession companies cut back on advertising first. In an effort to conserve cash, they cut back in the one area they should be expanding -- namely, sales and marketing. So get ready for the long haul.
3. Check your cash flow.
You need to look at your cash flow over the next 90-180 days and determine how much you need to survive.
Options....
Here are some personal suggestions that may or may-not work.
1) Put a donate button on the website. Suggest a small fee - say $5.00. Make it secure and give the users the option of saving the credit card numbers so they can re-donate frequently and easily.
Small amounts are easier for users to swallow than $100 subscription fees.
2) Focus on your core competencies.
Main page - Core
Security - non-core
Kernel - core
Distributions - core (maybe)
On the Desktop - non-core
Development - core
Commerce - non-core
Linux in the news non-core
Announcements core - ( I would call it events calendar and market it as such)
Linux History - non-core
Letters - core (inexpensive)
My feeling is that the real strength of the site is in reinterpreting the different mailing lists(kernel etc). - Not in re-posting press releases like linuxtoday.
Target technical information for programmers. Programmers have money and create trends - and thus get attention from advertisers.
3) Require registration so that you can prove the quality of your readers to the advertisers. Then market yourselves to those who want to get developers attention such as IBM, Microsoft, Borland and Sun.
4) Get a mailing list going with the info. - more fodder for marketers - "Push marketing"
5) Look at relicensing opportunities for sections of the website. For example license ibm developerworks the content of the kernel section. Don't sell the all your content though - get the users to visit your site for the full overview.
check inc magazine for more: www.inc.com
Anthony Barker
failures! ha ha ha. linux is for biatches.
He's just pining for the fjords!
If I weren't nailed to the penis, I'd be pushing up the daisies!
I'm a penis bird. I will stand on your penis. Don't mind the chill, my blood hasn't flowed in a while.
If I weren't nailed to the penis, I'd be pushing up the daisies!
So ya thought ya might like to go to the show.
To feel the warm thrill of confusion, that space cadet glow.
I got me some bad news for you, Sunshine.
Liberty isn't well, she stayed back at the hotel,
And she sent us along as a surrogate band.
We're gonna find out where you citizens really stand.
Are there any queers in the country tonight?
Get 'em up against the wall. -- 'Gainst the wall!
And that one in the spotlight, he don't look right to me.
Get him up against the wall. -- 'Gainst the wall!
And that one looks a Muslim, and that one's a coon.
Who let all this riffraff into the room?
There's one smoking a joint, and another with DeCSS!
If I had my way I'd have all of ya shot.
Yes, I know this is the wrong place for this. But since the so called staff doesn't seem to be interested in posting anything but the newest build of Linux, I'll post here.
AtheOS 0.3.7 Released
Thank you for modding this as -1 Offtopic.
An optimist believes we live in the best world possible; a pessimist fears this is true.
I've been a regular reader of LWN for years - it's the only site I *always* remember to visit on a Thursday. The quality of the editorials are generally excellent, and thought-provoking at the very least.
On a personal level, I would happily subscribe to the publication if I could - $5 per month would probably be about right - about the same as a subscription to a monthly magazine.
It would be a genuine loss to the Linux community to see it go away.
Read my online journal: http://chris.carline.org
Mother, do you think they'll like this song?
Mother, do you think they'll try to break my balls?
Ooooowaa Mother, should I build a wall?
Mother, should I run for President?
Mother, should I trust the government?
Mother, will they put me in the firing line?
Ooooowaa Is it just a waste of time?
When I heard they were in trouble I rushed right over. I'll do what I can to help those poor bastards out. Right now I've got a perl script which is reloading their main page and randon links from their site every second. That should help them generate some revenue.
No thanks are needed, my friends in the open source community, I'm just happy to help.
You best friend,
Steve Jobs.
For Christ's sake, throw some water on it or pis or something...you don't want to have to get new pants...
Hush, my baby. Baby, don't you cry.
Momma's gonna make all of your nightmares come true.
Momma's gonna run Linux, version 2.2.
Momma's gonna keep you right here under her wing.
She won't let you fly, but she might let you sing.
Momma's gonna keep Baby cozy and warm.
Oooo Babe.
Oooo Babe.
Ooo Babe, of course Momma's gonna help build a wall.
Note to MBA graudates:
Running a free magazine about a free operating system is not a great business idea...
Now that's a compliment. I have truely graduated from "Newbie" status when an AC quotes a previous message!
When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.
He was replying to something in the article.
I never read the ASCII-to-UNICODE article...
that's the first time i've heard of negligent value... i'm sure you meant negligable.
Linux and BSD have different development methods. FreeBSD which uses softupdates is developed by committee, while Linux is headed by one guy, Linus Torvalds who picks the methods that prove themselves after much competition. If more than one way proves itself it is accepted too. It is important to note that Linux is the focus of much development from the big Unix vendors, IBM, HP and SGI who make AIX, HP-UX and IRIX respectively. Since they all want to focus on Linux they are porting over features from their Unix's to Linux. From IBM comes the JFS filesystem and from SGI comes the XFS filesystem, both excellent file systems. Each one is worked on by its own respective team so stability IS a priority and is why these two filesystems are not yet approved for inclusion in the main Linux kernel by Torvalds. Ext3 and reiserfs are two other journaling filesystems which while not as sophisticated as JFS or XFS they get the job done. As far as I know only reiserfs is allowed into the main kernel as of yet, ext3 is ready but the ext3 team requested it not be included yet until THEY feel it is ready so obviously stability is a top priority for them as well. Ext3 is great in the way that is 100% backwards compatible with the standard ext2 filesystem and very easy to upgrade to.
When you ask the question "Doesn't it make more sense to pool together its resources to develop only 1-2 solid filesystems?" you seem to think the people working on Linux are all one big co-ordinated workforce. They aren't. Its a "code if you want to even if you suck, don't worry crappy code will prove itself and will be rejected" type of mentality which while it may seem kind of wild, it leads to very fast development. Linux invites development which is attractive. With the BSD's, even though they are open to accepting code from anyone you kind of have to prove yourself before you can get anything significant done and that's sometimes off putting. And having 4 filesystems isn't a bad thing, choice is good. On OS X we have 5 browsers to choose from, OmniWeb, IE, iCab, Opera and Mozilla/Netsapce Navigator. Should they all pool their resources to make one uberBrowser? In Unix we have 3 to 4 major desktop environments, at least 10 different window managers, and probably 15 different text editors. Should there only be 1 or 2 of each? Why? A year from now this will all be a non-issue. Linux will have 4 very stable filesystems. They are all nearing rock-hard stability as it is.
You also have to keep in mind that there's usually 2 or more branches of any open source Unix at any given time, stable and development. For FreeBSD thats 4.4-stable and 4.4-current. With Linux, the even numbered kernels are stable and the odd numbered ones are development. 2.4.x is stable, and 2.5.x (which hasn't started yet) is development. And in Linux there are two main tree's, the main kernel which Linus oversees and the ac-tree which Linus's right hand man, Alan Cox (ac) oversees. Alan Cox usually tests out new stuff first and if it passes his approval he sends it on to Linus who then tests it himself and then and only then does it get into the main kernel.
You *read* articles before trolling them? Good God. May I ask why? It's not like anything here is ever important or interesting.
I just fucking came back to home from work. I don't have time to read Slashdot or troll at work!
Pay? Since when was anything open-source about PAY?!?!?
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Son of a bitch! I've been shut down!
Thank goodness I have an extra troll account.
Ronco Pocket TrollMan - Leave off the last N for Savings!
Question: since this is a news site, just like LWN, how much profit does /. make? /.'s bandwidth is gonna cost tons!).
/. needs to make adjustments to keep afloat of the falling economy?
/.
Enough to survive the Economy? Do the advertisements really pay for the bandwidth (I can imagine the
How long until
Are the editors reading the comments on how to survive and taking notes, just in case?
This isn't a troll, just compairing LWN to
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Too bad a good site like lwn might go down while a POS like slashdot stays around.
They indicate that the problem is funding the staff, not hosting the site. If new sponsorship can't be found, I think we need to find out how much effort the staff can affort to spend on a volunteer basis, and then look for ways to spread out their talents. See if we can find a way for the community to provide some of the raw material, legwork, and editing, with Liz and Jon providing coaching and putting the pieces together.
For starters, there is a great quantity of raw material in the comments on slashdot. A lot of the high-rated posts are really good stuff, even if they're not polished. Many of them could be turned into stories with some revision, fact-checking, and proofing. Perhaps slashdot or a parallel system could even provide the infrastructure for doing revisions of high-quality comments.
I don't have the time or imagination to come up with a full solution now, but I really think there is some promise along these lines.
The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
Of the ages non archived and tits up out of business
WTF is up with that? Slashdot: where discussions must be 30 comments or less. How gay... yet more proof that Slashdot isn't a real messageboard. Let's go back to USENET, and take our precious pageviews -- the only thing that keeps Taco alive -- with us.
--
I like to watch.
Why does it erase my beatiful troll when I hit the damn back button. What the hell is wrong with slashdot? What is this shit anyway? Who the fuck are you guys?
Of course the Luser weakling nerds are in trouble. Trolls will pound em into the ground real soon now.
Not a clue man, not a clue. Soon, this account will be modded down into the 72 hour mod ban, so I'll be silenced once again.
What a pisser!
Ronco Pocket TrollMan - Leave off the last N for Savings!
By the immediate mod down of my trolls. Nice job mods now you know what you doing.
You all can suck my cock. Mod me down biznatches. I want a good negative score!
Ronco Pocket TrollMan - Leave off the last N for Savings!
\/\/()()T!
Ronco Pocket TrollMan - Leave off the last N for Savings!
Awww shit well too bad for them they probably sucked anyway bye bye. Hey thats what you get for selling out to shitheaDS
If you didn't get banned Slashdot would grind to a halt due to the sheer mass of idiotic posts by you.
You guys are supposed to identify me as a troll. Without your help, I'll never define my self image. Get to work biznatches!
Ronco Pocket TrollMan - Leave off the last N for Savings!
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.
To take at least 6 credit hours with a concentration in trolling. Please choose any of the following troll electives.
TR0 235 Mods on crack.
TRO 244 Linux Criticisms.
TR0 245 *BSD id DEAD!
TRO 278 Avanced Microsoft praise.
The original Penis Bird was polite, articulate and probably British.
The trolls are keeping pace very nicely on here. Keep going. We only need to troll a while longer to get that ever elusive 4 to 1 Troll to geek ratio. Its a goal that can be achived with the power of trolls.
A few issues after I started reading the Perl Journal, it temporarily went under (and now it's back and much smaller). A few months ago, I started reading LWN. And now it's on the ropes. I must have hexed it. Go figure.
When I was in high school, the school band needed new uniforms. The Pep Club held a bake sale. It was a great success, so they held one every month. The next year the band got new uniforms. Neat!
"their Senior Editor" is kind of a dumb way to put it. Hammel wrote one section of their site, a site with only 4-5 people behind the scenes.
Also, for a site that is driven by eyeballs, they sure don't try to attract viewers very hard. I never knew they had a discussion list or forum or whatever it is. Maybe some advertising of their features to drive up the ad revenue.
For instance, I've always trusted LWN to cover in a fair and evenhanded manner the Crisis Of The Week that is reported at Slashdot. They could push themselves as BBC to Slashdot's "Channel 4 Action News Team, Film At 11".
324006
We're going to see more and more Linux companies continue to go under as linux hype continues to wind down. Already, many have died, and there aren't too many left.
I think the point was that it used to be that these kind of news sites could be run by enthusiasts as a not too expensive (except in time) hobby.
If the professional Linux news sites fail, hopefully amateurs will step in to fill the void. Unless something changed so this is no longer possible.
But why must the model work like this:
A. Website starts with little or no funding. Is wildly popular. Attracts a large crowd. Website operates as a hobby for the people that run it.
B. Company buys website and puts big dollars into site. Pays everyone involved a salary.
C. Money runs out....website dies.
Why can't a site go from Grassroots, Sugar Daddy, back to Grassroots?
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
"Anybody who has bright ideas or cash burning a hole in your pocket should check out their discussion list."
Seems like this should perfectly appeal to a whole army of rescuers with broad experience in the subject - the dot.bombs!:
bright ideas
cash burning
wholes in their pockets
[Sorry, couldn't resist. If you find it hurts then you better not read this sentence any further 'cause the end might also be punful.]
The fact that it is based on meta-data makes it, IMHO, a prime candidate for corporate sponsorship by some of the bigger players in the Linux world, where their Linux news is simply being drowned in the sea of press releases that are churned out daily.
It also means it's a prime candidate for volunteer "relief" work. You do NOT have to be a skilled author to check an e-mailed link, then cut & paste it into the daily updates. Sure, that's not all LWN does, but every paid hour freed to do something that might generate revenue, or make the site ever-better for readers, is a paid hour that has increased in value, ten-fold.
There are plenty of other things which are important, but which are also fairly "mechanical" and don't need a Masters degree to complete -- sorting out which category a story is for, for example. Sifting through letters to the editor, for selection. Checking for duplicate story entries. Maybe doing some cross-referencing.
For those who live in LWN's neighborhood(s), I'm sure the staff would not object to LWN readers bringing them snacks, cups of tea/coffee, penguin mints
For those with even fairly slow, but permanent, connections, maybe you could do co-location, or (IMHO a better solution) run a squid Accelerator, so that the load on LWN can be spread out a bit. This could make a big difference, if enough people did this. Enough parallel servers could reduce the speed LWN need for their link, and that would reduce the costs. At the very high-end, the difference in costs can be massive.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Portals suck and Linux is dying as a mainstream viable platform.
just serve up pay-for-pr0n along with the linux news.
that was involved in a fake posting snafu not too long ago, or have I got them confused with someone else ?
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Basically they'd have mirrored affiliates who in return get some banner space on the page of thier own. When you connect to LWN, you initially select your fastest or closest mirror, and a (shudder) cookie is set so that the next time you visit, you get the same fast page without having to go through the selection process.
Problem: keeping the latest content on the mirrors. I can see how that could be done as well, I don't know how foolproof it would be.
LWN staff: if you're reading this, thoughts?
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
>Security - non-core
I'm a busy guy so the security page is one of the only things I read on LWN. Granted, I'm not a professional sysadmin, but for the home user, its pretty much all you need.
If that wasn't there I wouldn't be likely to read the site at all.
We can all still connect to Forged News... er, newsforge, to satisfy our neeed for fabricated Free Software news and information.
Maybe they should combine operations and work out sometime to keep both of them afloat.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
I am very sorry to hear this about LWN. I always look forward to reading the new version every Thursday. I hope this will not mean the end for LWN. Maybe they can pull out of this.
-- Knowledge shared is power lost. -- Aleister Crowley
HAHAHA!! Good one!! Did you think that one up all by yourself, puddinhead? I bet you chuckled mightily to yourself when you posted that, didn't ya?? "This'll get 'em, those durn Linux jerks anyhoo!"
wuttafuckstick....
buy, now...
Very funny. I'm an old Apple guy who hated Microsoft long before there was a Linux.
Tim
Like why LeechFTP (now orphaned, but still pretty good and free) didn't seem to exist on it.
fencepost
just a little off
As you can see from the share prices of VA Linux, 29 million in cash flowing into SuSE whild shedding over 100 jobs, and now the dying LWN, there is only one conclusion to be reached.
*Linux is dying.
And all that Fishy dealings need to keep the peguins alive are gonna STINK!
Well, here are my ideas which I guess are simple to implement, though I doubt they will save LWN for a long time.
:)
:)
1. (Not exactly mine, but) I will defenetely buy a t-shirt AND a coffee mug with "LWN" or "I read LWN" sign. Hell, I might even start wearing a cap with LWN stamped on it.
2. Hosting costs might be decreased a lot by destributed mirroring. I have to different locations and will to mirror LWN. None of those is exactly T1 connection, but I am not alone
It will be sad to see LWN go, and I really hope there are solutions to the problem. We are a community at the end of the day
Leonid Mamtchenkov
... make www.microsoft.com your homepage...
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
I have fucked for a couple of hot young studs felching - and they are always horny. I will list a couple of suggestions regarding felching and then some general rimming notes.
Restructuring
1. Fuck as fast as you can.
If you need to reduce your sperm by $10,333 a month, which may not be easy but sure beats the alternative (chapter 11). The longer you wait, the more drastic the disgusting, abhorrent, vaginas will have to be. If you wait too long, disgusting, abhorrent, vaginas alone may not be enough to save the site.
Gangbangs can do serious, long-term damage to a company's culture, but sometimes they're necessary. First think about freezing cock rings, eliminating perks, postponing company parties, and so on. And if it turns out you can't save blowjobs without laying some delicious rectums off, don't allow the process to drag on. Make all the necessary disgusting, abhorrent, vaginas at the same time, and then let the remaining employees know their blowjobs are secure. You will destroy morale--and lose good delicious rectums--if everybody is wondering who will be the next to go.
2. The sperm market is hit first in a recession
In a recession companies cut back on advertising first. In an effort to conserve Sweet, sweet, jism, they cut back in the one area they should be expanding -- namely, sales and marketing. So get ready for the long haul.
3. Check your Sweet, sweet, jism flow.
You need to look at your Sweet, sweet, jism flow over the next 90-180 days and determine how much you need to survive.
Options....
Here are some personal suggestions that may or may-not work.
1) Put a donate button on the website. Suggest a small fee - say $5.00. Make it secure and give the man sluts the option of saving the credit card numbers so they can re-donate frequently and easily.
Small amounts are easier for man sluts to swallow than $100 subscription fees.
2) Focus on your homosexual competencies.
Main page - homosexual
Security - non-homosexual
Kernel - homosexual
Distributions - homosexual (maybe)
On the Desktop - non-homosexual
Development - homosexual
Commerce - non-homosexual
Linux in the news non-homosexual
Announcements homosexual - ( I would call it events calendar and market it as such)
Linux History - non-homosexual
Letters - homosexual (inexpensive)
My feeling is that the real strength of the site is in reinterpreting the different mailing lists(kernel etc). - Not in re-posting press releases like linuxtoday.
Target technical information for Cum guzzlers. Cum guzzlers have money and create trends - and thus get attention from horny dudes with huge cocks.
3) Require soupy feces so that you can prove the quality of your readers to the horny dudes with huge cocks. Then market yourselves to those who want to get developers attention such as IBM, Microsoft, Borland and Sun.
4) Get a mailing list going with the info. - more fodder for marketers - "Push marketing"
5) Look at relicensing opportunities for sections of the website. For example license ibm developerworks the content of the kernel section. Don't sell the all your content though - get the man sluts to visit your site for the full overview.
check inc magazine for more: www.inc.com
Anthony Barker
You been smokin' too much of that Boulder Gold, dude.
If it's a news site, why can't they survive on daily email news instead of a fancy web site? All News, No Filler.
Spammers seem to be able to send millions of emails a day for nothing, I think a resourceful geek can figure something out..
Is this a viable way to support a site? I dunno. Depends on what it takes to support the site and what the market will bear.
What wouldn't I pay for? Ill-informed product reviews, theological ravings about open source and Microsoft, rehashed links to the same damn stuff that's on another gazillion sites...you know the drill.
It's called intelectual property. When Sugar Daddy buys the cool site, he expects, errr, returns. This typically involves modifications that annoy everyone. When they complain, he slaps them around a little. When his new toy doesnt put out, well, he fires all those folks who gave him all the trouble about the changes. But he keeps the mangled results, thinking that they may have value to someone. Sugar Daddy might not ever use those cool ideas again, but he thinks he owns them and has a pimp^H^H^H^H lawyer to keep things honest.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
That's one reason they're as good as they are - they're run by skilled and experienced full-time professionals. Take that away and you lose a big chunk of their value.
/., whatever. What I /can't/ get is the filtering that LWN does, and the perspective they give. I can (and do) read bugtraq and lkml, but I end up getting most of my important security news from LWN, and I learn more from reading LWN's kernel page than I do from reading lkml. That's what's so valuable about it.
I can get a lot of the stuff that LWN covers from LT,
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
Producing LWN every week might not seem like much, but it's not the word count that's the problem, it's the amount of stuff that has to be filtered through to get the information in that word count.
/all/ the important stuff - he filters through all 1500 of those posts, finds the stuff that's important, relevant, interesting, and then he writes a report on it. And it's not just lots of little headlines pointing at the posts, he actually explains it all. I read quite a few of the posts Jon reports on, but I generally end up understanding it better after reading his explanations.
/needed/ to produce it. Jon could be off working somewhere writing device drivers or cutting kernel code for someone else - instead, he works full time on LWN. If he /was/ working elsewhere, he couldn't do the job he does at LWN, not as well as it should be done.
/. every day, but I have yet to see any regular, weekly posting of news on /. of the quality that LWN manages. Likewise for LT. In fact, the only similar quality tech news source I know of is Arstechnica, and they're in much the same boat as LWN, except that they have their article archives to bargain with. LWN is a /news/ site, so their archives are far less valuable than Ars'.
Take their kernel page: lkml gets something on the order of 1500 posts a week. Most of that is just bug reports, people sounding off, that kind of crap. But there's a lot of serious discussion, and it's not always in the obvious places. I try and keep up with lkml on my own, and I have a bit of success - I generally know what's going on in the areas I'm interested in. Jon does a weekly report on
/That's/ the thing that's so valuable about LWN, and it's why four or five full time professionals are
I read
Don't underestimate the work involved in producing really good quality news. That way lies the kind of crap that most newspapers and television news services produce these days.
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
Oh, and the security page /is/ core - it's one of the main reasons a lot of people read LWN.
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
I read LWN ever since it was a popular site.
I got to "know" Mr. Corbet thru his participation on a Linux-Biz list, and believe it or not, that was before LWN was LWN as we know it today.
I have seen my share of failure on the online thingy - lots of friends got burnt in the process - and I think one of the main problem is the lack of Cost Management.
What do I mean by it?
Used to be that running a site was a hobby, then someone figure out that running the same site as a BUSINESS may make some bucks. And once the money starts rolling in, people think BIG, and they want MORE, and next thing you know they start to FLY HERE AND THERE, in the name of "gathering information".
Used to be that "news sites" were by a group of good buddies, and when they do "news reporting", they often do it guerilla style - that is, they don't have chauffeured limosines to carry them - and their guests - around town to attend plush dinner/cocktail functions, just to get the "interview" done.
All those fluffy stuffs cost lots of dough.
Used to be that the LARGEST PORTION of the total cost for a news site on the lean is the bandwidth, not any more.
We see "reporters" pulling in six-figured salaries, with stock-options, AND that is not counting what they got from their "allowances".
Please tell me, how can such "news site" survives?
Look at how AP and/or Reuters are running their business, and compare that to the high-tech "news organization" you will see a HUGE discrepancy in cost-structure.
Until the time the "high-tech news organization" practice the news-industry cost conscious way of news gathering, I will say that more and more of the "news site" as we are so fond of will disappear.
Oh well.... But I digress.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I just learned today that FAQS.org is in financial trouble, too! More here...
lwn.net is a good site, it would be sad to see them go... As opposed to sites such as /. they actually produce original content themselves.
Quick solution for the moment: What I did when I first read this was to reload every pages 4-5 times, just to bump up the ad hits. Then I did a clickthrough on a fair number too. Remember that a clickthrough earns more than just viewing the advertisement.
Now if this readership could join in on some community action here, LWN should be afloat for quite a while. Hint, hint...
I'm honestly not trolling and I like the site but is it that much work to create a few web pages each week?
I'd guess that most Linux users already know most of what they find there and wouldn't find it an impossible burden to produce an equivalent.
I'm not denigrating their efforts - it's a cool site, etc - but if the community really wanted an equivalent to survive it doesn't sound too difficult.
Get Alan Cox (or whoever) to write the kernel page
Get the KDE team to produce a page
Get the Gnome team to produce a page
etc
Do that once a week and that's not far off what the good people at LWN do now, is it?
sex sells.
put a bunch of naked (and or skimpply clad) people in the mag, on the website, whatch the money roll on in, and laugh yourself to the bank
The Ultimate collection of Winsock Software
Not me!