Internet.com Acquires Linuxcentral

mulan writes "The E-Business and Internet Technology Network has acquired linuxcentral.com. This comes shortly after the recent aquisition of LinuxToday.com in a move to further Linux support for the Internet community. The article appears in today's Business Wire or you can read the official press release here. "

Comments

Maybe good, maybe not

[jd]

I am wary of too many takeovers. An owned online site, or an owned journal, tends to have less editorial control. Not even necessarily because the owners directly instruct them what to print, but because the editors have to keep an eye on the paycheque.

On the other hand, anything that brings money and resources to Linux is good, and media attention is no bad thing, either. (There's a maxim that all publicity is good publicity.)

I'll have to wait and see whether this trend helps or hinders Linux. I hope it helps, but I'd be a fool to blindly trust that.

Small business, big business?

[Christopher B. Brown]

My local Linux Users Group has been doing considerable business (relatively speaking to any individual, at least) with LinuxCentral; I rather hope that the change in organization doesn't have any substantial impact on the way they operate their business.

One of the merits of dealing with a small company is that they don't feel the need to, before saying "yes" to things, say:

• Sorry, we're going to have to ask the legal department for sign-off before we can proceed.
• I'm not sure this goes along with the Marketing Department's sales strategy.

If extra levels of management get in the way of getting things done, this might not be such a good thing.

internet.com is Evil incarnate

[h2odragon]

Well, OK, maybe they're not as bad as some, but from what I've seen they're not good. Anybody remeber what BoardWatch was like back in the day? The magazine was full of informed people saying what they thought, the site was a little graphics heavy but balanced by informed and informative content, and they were just a hell of a resource.

Then they got bought by internet.com.

I won't forget the first print issue I picked up after the buyout (and the last I've bought, BTW). The editorial tone had changed from "I'm a guy like you, who has interest in this stuff" to "I've forgotten more about this than you'll ever know"; their politics did a complete 180, and though the magazine was thicker, the content was less.

The really painful thing was what happened to the site. Go look at their back issues there. Articles used to be one file per, with no more graphics than were necessary, and certainly no Javascript. After the buyout, the site became a poor parody of what it was. Javascript, a minimum of 3 ads per page (most animated), and the thing that really cheesed me off: Articles seem to get paginated at around 300 words. Which means that what used to be a simple matter of just finding and reading an article became Yet Another mousehunt for the links that'll take you to the next page, which has it's own 3 to 5 ads, etc.

They still seem to make all their print content available via the web as they did in the old days, for which I'd thank 'em if I still read their stuff. I understand the reasons internet.com pissed all over what BoardWatch was, I just don't think it was needed. I really, really hope they can restrain their tendancies with their new acquistions.

Not all publicity is good

[Christopher B. Brown]

There are some forms of publicity that are not good.

• Not long ago, a senior officer of one of the "web tools" companies was arrested as a result of a sting operation that essentially ascertained that he was a pedophile.

  That was decidedly not good news for the company.

• Last year, there was a story going around about one of the managers at Red Hat "spending quality time" with what would probably be termed a "Linux groupie."

  This caused mud to be thrown in all sorts of directions, making both he, RHAT, and the woman, all look bad.

  I don't know the truth of the matter; regaling the world with tales of sexual escapades that are distinctly Not Politically Correct is decidedly Not Good Publicity.

• Considering that the vast majority of the visible portions of the Linux community is made up of white males, not only is some "Male Dominance" likely, but also some "White Dominance."

  If a story comes out this year about, assortedly, such things as:

  • Linux-related businesses that are making racist hiring decisions;
  • Lists of racist jokes going around at some Linux business;
  This will again represent something that would not be reasonably seen as "good publicity."

  I don't think that the Linux community is rife with "Neo-Nazi Militias," but I'm reasonably sure that there's enough of this to cause distress.