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Linux Journal Ceases Publication (linuxjournal.com)
Not too long after Linus Torvalds wrote his own Unix kernel, which he called Linux, in the summer of 1991, a magazine was founded by enthusiasts to focus on the operating system. For more than two decades Linux Journal has been an authority magazine on all things Linux, often cited by mainstream outlets, but it is now shuttering doors. In a blog post, Linux Journal's Carlie Fairchild writes: It looks like we're at the end, folks. If all goes according to a plan we'd rather not have, the November issue of Linux Journal was our last. The simple fact is that we've run out of money, and options along with it. We never had a wealthy corporate parent or deep pockets of our own, and that made us an anomaly among publishers, from start to finish. While we got to be good at flying close to the ground for a long time, we lost what little elevation we had in November, when the scale finally tipped irrevocably to the negative. Thanks for all the fish.
what a loss...
So very sad...
Netcraft confirms it: Windows has just pounded the last nail in the Linux coffin. With the Journal's demise, Linux has been relegated to loser OS status like Minix and BBOS. Windows rules, Linus drools. Our national nightmare is now over.
Another classical magazine succumbed to the advancement of technology it itself promoted.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Phil Hughes started LJ and eventually gave it to Carlie Fairchild when he left for South America. I believe that Bob Young was a seed funder but I don't think the journal ever had that big a capitalization. Running a magazine about Linux in the face of the torrent of information about it on the Internet was never an easy thing. It's incredible that she was able to keep it going this long, and I wish Carlie luck in her future endeavors.
Bruce Perens.
Of Linux exiting desktop publishing,
I always like Linux Journal, it wasn't dumbed down, like so many things are these days.
First law of people: People are generally stupid.
Because I've been using Linux since 2003 and never even heard of this magazine.
I used to have a subscription (I think I had it for 6-7 years), but when they went only to an electronic only version and dropped the dead-tree, I did not renew.
I wonder how many other people did the same thing.
Didn't have a 'fat pipe' nor a fast one either, back in the day.
It's incredible that she was able to keep it going this long
And sold with physical media (cd or dvd) off the stands!
Plus all the tech articles it was filled with, that outnumbered the ads. It will be missed.
It was a good run. Best of luck to the people who made it all work and muchas gracias.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Yep.
From the summary that says "not too long after Linus Torvalds wrote his own Unix kernel, which he called Linux, in the summer of 1991, a magazine was founded by enthusiasts to focus on the operating system" it appears the magazine began as a garage operation. Why couldn't downsizing be an option? Surely the magazine now is in much better shape, financially or organizationally, than when it was started out as an enthusiast operation.
Don't forget osnews. I go there every so often and I'm always pleasantly surprised it's still thriving.
No wonder they went out of business, they shouldn't have accepted payment in fish. Harder to convert to hard currency than bitcoins, too short of a shelf-life.
I remember reading Linux Journal while flirting with the cute cashier at a local Tower Records. Today, Linux Journal is gone, Tower Records is gone, and that cute cashier is my friend on Facebook. At least the best element of that part of my life is still around...
I think a lot of what Linux Journal stood for is alive and well with Linux Weekly News. Yes, it's paywalled, but quality content costs real money to make, and the paywalled articles are made free to read after about a month.
...when this was to be the Year of Linux ?
I was a subscriber for many years. One day they told me my print subscription had been converted to an esubscription and I wouldn’t get a refund. I never even looked at the esubscription and never renewed it. I would probably still be a subscriber if they hadn’t done that.
Proof that "information wants to be free" makes great financial sense.
So sad. . .
There is/was a Linux Journal.
Minix being in 100% of the Intel-powered computers made in nearly the last decade, it has a higher marketshare than Windows, macOS and Linux.
Not necessarily. If there are more Intel computers without Windows than AMD computers with Windows, then Intel Minix outnumbers Windows. Otherwise, Windows outnumbers Intel Minix, and the numbers are Ryzen.
However, the term "Linux" encompasses a number of different kinds of systems: GNU/Linux (the environment designed to replace traditional UNIX on workstations and servers), embedded Linux (which uses uClibc and BusyBox instead of GNU), and Android. The sum of these three may very well exceed Intel Minix.
That leaves, what? Linux Format: the 400 Lbs Gorilla of Linux reading material, with a price to match, Linux Magazine and distro-focused publications like Full Circle?
I do hope they get a chance to make a final run of the back edition PDF collection.
Many of the columns, such as David Taylor's work the shell, are timeless and quite useful.
There is value even the Letters to the Editors where smart or at least smart ass people suggested better or alternative ways to implement the various little projects detailed in LJ.
I also enjoyed the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML) summaries and discovered Reuven Lerner's python series through the magazine.
And there are always the Geek Guides.
"You cannot have a General Will unless you have shared experiences. You cannot be fair to people you don't know."
I was a subscriber for many years. One day they told me my print subscription had been converted to an esubscription and I wouldn’t get a refund. I never even looked at the esubscription and never renewed it. I would probably still be a subscriber if they hadn’t done that.
THIS!.. I too was a print subscriber for many years and never renewed once they went all digital.
From extreme right
to "Reagan was a pussy socialist" right.
It's weird how, to us in Germany / Europe, the US is now basically "the surviving one, of the two psycho fascist Nazi states".
(Remember: Your industry made a killing from supporting the Nazis before the war, you hired the Nazi human experiment doctors and scientists after the war, you treated Japanese like Nazis treated Jews, you did loads of human experiments, your racism is so solid that you single-handedly kept the race theories (aka "there are human races") alive, even though there is no such term in science, and last but not least, you still operate many concentration camps / gulags throughout the world. (Guantanmo Bay being one of many. The political leader of Poland stepped down when he "found out" that one was *in* Poland. It is apparently "closed" now.)
If that isn't Nazi, then what is?
I stopped when they went electronic only. I saw that someone else posted a similar reaction. I like holding certain reading material in my hands. I can google with the best of them for specific info, I wanted a MAGAZINE. I would have paid more to keep it.
Sigh.
Subscribed to those same three. It was sad when Byte abandoned the hobby readers by going all Windows and commercial.
> Why couldn't downsizing be an option? Surely the magazine now is in much better shape, financially or organizationally, than when it was started out as an enthusiast operation.
It's LARGER than when it started out. Very likely not in BETTER condition financially. If it's big and "no longer financially viable" that likely means "owes a bunch of money to suppliers", and maybe even to employees and the IRS. Having $6 in the donation plate is better financially than having $20,000 in the bank and a tax bill for $800,000.
you treated Japanese like Nazis treated Jews
Interment camps Concentration Camps - just one difference, we kept families together. Another, we didn't send countless Japanese into gas chambers, and stripped their body of hair, gold, glasses, and any other valuable before sending their corpses to incinerators that rained down ashes on nearby cities.
But hey, why am I explaining this to you, in Germany - I'm certain they covered all this in your German History classes.
Ken
Linux end users just are not there to support these sites. Everyone says they are for open source, but hardly anyone contributes. I can only imagine how few contribute even to a bigger project like Mint let alone small sites trying to provide news. You won't get many advertisers on sites like Linux Journal either. Really too bad, but not unexpected. Linux is all about contributions folks, you either support it or it goes away.
Really, if the door needed shutters, they should have been fitted before they put the door up.Idiots.
Nobody seems to be asking the obvious question. What's a "magazine" ?
They could have absorbed sections of Byte, C++ Users Journal and also some of Embedded Systems Magazine and Dr. Dobbs ... But it stayed narrowly focused also the British Linux mags are way more colorful.
I stopped my subscription when Nicholas Petreley became the editor in chief in Feb 2006:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8717
He wrote harshly worded articles of no value. His articles were bordering on fanaticism and stirred the pot of hatred ever so often:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8716
Loved it before then, and subscribed every year even when I was on a shoestring student's budget.
After? Shit, Hitler got his "seed money" from the Ford's and Bush's.
Sad to see such a publication go, but it is interesting that in the FOSS world all comes down to money in the end as well. Also shows that documentation is the first thing to go in the FOSS universe, no different than in the profit oriented closed source world. So where are all these volunteers who make things happen for the better of the universe?
It's nice to see all of these comments.
Here's my side of it, as a columnist since 1996: http://blog.lerner.co.il/sad-d...
Hats off to you, Ken! I am so tired of the constant U.S. bashing by people in Europe who've had to be rescued by the U.S. from their own TWICE last century!
We have "Linux For You" (renamed as Open Source For You) still published in India. That's good. http://lfymag.com/previousissue.asp?month=December&year=2017&tot=1&id=13
Remarkably surviving for about 12 years or more.