
Linux Journal Ceases Publication: An Awkward Goodbye - akulbe
https://www.linuxjournal.com/
======
SwellJoe
This quote is particularly biting:

"It became clearer than ever to me that while Linux and FOSS had won the
battle over the tech giants a decade before, new ones had taken their place in
the meantime, and we were letting them win."

It's true. We won it all, but we somehow still lost, and that's a difficult
and sad thing to realize. Even though FOSS ate the world, we didn't win
software freedom, we just enabled a bunch of new tech giants to put us into
consumer roles with little to no freedom once again.

~~~
yholio
I think the wins of the open camp are real and tangible and they powerfully
shape the industry. Android is free precisely because an open kernel is
available that could empower a competitor. Google is absolutely paranoid about
this possibility, and is severly limited in the Microsoft-esque moves they can
make.

I think what precludes the final victory of open source is that the world
itself changed for the better. The mobile and web revolution brought easy to
use software into the hands of billions. These are people who wouldn't have
been able to touch a PC twenty years ago, let alone understand or care about
what source code is. They have vastly different expectations than the
professional software users that created the free source movement in the image
of the hackers of the 70s and 80s. Just look at the number of rooted phones
sold. It's an appliance model of computing.

In this new consumer environment, the free source development model is less
adequate and cannot compete with commercial software that can directly
monetize the apps and invest in further development. What is required, I
think, is to update the free software philosophy to the 21st century, and
relax some of the ideological goals to facilitate development and reach the
more substantial goals, like privacy and security.

The walled gardens of Google and Apple can be replicated. What is lacking is a
free software business model that can gather the $1 billion or so required.

~~~
TelmoMenezes
> I think what precludes the final victory of open source is that the world
> itself changed for the better.

Maybe we don't live in the same world???

> The mobile and web revolution brought easy to use software into the hands of
> billions.

Yes, but this software is not empowering the users, it is controlling them,
isolating them, radicalizing them and making them feel more depressed.

~~~
_jal
"We put a chicken in every pot! Nevermind that they're rotting, salmonella-
filled carcasses, we still did it!"

And:

>In this new consumer environment, the free source development model is less
adequate and cannot compete with commercial software that can directly
monetize the apps and invest in further development.

What, exactly, is supposed to be new here? I see nothing distinguishing the
economics of this "new consumer environment" from 1995, except maybe that
Redhat doesn't sell CDs anymore.

What has changed since the 90s is increasingly onerous intellectual property
law, anti-reverse-engineering laws, and the continued creep of the belief that
ideas should be owned.

And this is precisely backwards:

> What is required, I think, is to update the free software philosophy to the
> 21st century, and relax some of the ideological goals to facilitate
> development and reach the more substantial goals, like privacy and security.

If everybody's crazy uncle RMS had been more accommodating, more willing to
compromise on ideology, things never would have changed in the 90s. One
slightly cynical way of looking at it is that he was could play Bad Cop to ESR
and others' more corporate-friendly, accommodationist "Open Source" promotion,
somewhat similar (for much lower stakes) to how Huey Newton played bad-cop to
MLK's nonviolence.

If you drop the principle of always putting the user first, you'll eventually
compromise on everything else.

~~~
yholio
> What, exactly, is supposed to be new here? I see nothing distinguishing the
> economics of this "new consumer environment" from 1995

The free software model failed all the same in 1995 for a certain class of
applications. It's great for high performance, challenging pieces of code, for
kernels, servers and databases. Things with a large community of devolopers
among the users, willing to push patches back. Things that look good on a CV.
Software that needs to customized for professional users.

It's less good for mass market software. It's flawed for complete games (as
opposed to game engines). It's bad for professional software not used by
developers and that does not require customization. For example, it has never
been able to displace most Adobe products, despite the numerous attempts and
the revolting behavior of that company towards it's clients.

What changed was not the economic realities of free software. It's simply that
the type of projects where it shines have grown much slower than the rest of
the consumer software ecosystem. The world of computing moved ahead from the
needs of programmers to the needs of ordinary people, many of whom are willing
to pay .99 to solve them.

Insisting on "free to use" today stops you from realizing the other, more
substantial free software freedoms, and deprives the projects from much needed
resources in their competition with closed software.

------
reuven
I've been writing for Linux Journal since 1996.

Two years ago, we were told (with zero notice) that the magazine was shutting
down. This was disappointing on numerous levels, and I wrote about it here:

[https://lerner.co.il/2017/12/01/sad-day-end-linux-
journal-2/](https://lerner.co.il/2017/12/01/sad-day-end-linux-journal-2/)

This morning, I woke up to discover that once again, Linux Journal is shutting
down -- this time, for good. I'm sad for myself, but I'm also sad for the many
amazing authors and editors with whom I've worked over the years. I've also
met a huge number of readers at conferences at clients' offices, and I'm sorry
that the magazine will no longer be around to serve them.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Do you think some of the same content might make it to other publications, or
will most of the writers stop producing Linux articles?

~~~
reuven
I'm going to keep blogging and writing my free, weekly Better Developers
newsletter about Python and related technologies. (Not the same circulation as
LJ, but more than 13k subscribers.)

I don't know about the others, but I hope they continue writing, as well.

~~~
amrrs
Can you please link your newsletter subscription link here?

~~~
blfr
It's here [http://lerner.co.il/newsletter](http://lerner.co.il/newsletter)

------
boramalper
I've saved it! Here is a backup mirror:

[http://linuxjournal.as.boramalper.org/secure2.linuxjournal.c...](http://linuxjournal.as.boramalper.org/secure2.linuxjournal.com/ljarchive/)

If you'd like a copy too, please download & seed the torrent instead of
scraping:
[http://linuxjournal.as.boramalper.org/linuxjournal.torrent](http://linuxjournal.as.boramalper.org/linuxjournal.torrent)

~~~
zanonljf
Could you make a mirror and torrent of the 170 PDFs as well? They go back to
April 2005. You can find them at ljarchive.neverlocate.me/LinuxJournal

~~~
boramalper
I am afraid that might be illegal as they did not un-paywall the PDFs yet.

~~~
dave7
All PDFs on this page:
[https://secure2.linuxjournal.com/pdf/dljdownload.php](https://secure2.linuxjournal.com/pdf/dljdownload.php)
appear to be un-paywalled now (they were not yesterday).

~~~
boramalper
Well here you go then! [https://linuxjournal.as.boramalper.org/linuxjournal-
issues.t...](https://linuxjournal.as.boramalper.org/linuxjournal-
issues.torrent)

~~~
rietta
Transmission seems to be unable to open this for some reason. No errors, but
no progress then appears. Also doesn't ask where I want to save locally.
Weird.

~~~
djvdorp
Yeah, too bad. Worked fine in qBittorrent though.

But I wanted to seed it for a while via Transmission on one of my servers,
that is not gonna fly now for me unfortunately.

Thanks for the mirroring effort!

~~~
rietta
Here is a magnetic link to the Transmission archive
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:f3ef2d13f39efbb92ad84b877a6a686c5eba6ca6&dn=linuxjournal-
issues-mirror.tar.gz

~~~
rietta
Updated link with a a tracker
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:f3ef2d13f39efbb92ad84b877a6a686c5eba6ca6&dn=linuxjournal-
issues-mirror.tar.gz&tr=http%3A%2F%2Ftracker.gbitt.info%3A80%2Fannounce

------
timattrn
Let's hope lwn doesn't suffer the same fate... if there are any LJ subscribers
who don't subscribe to lwn, I hope they may take out a lwn subscription.

~~~
spidey1
lwn?

~~~
akuchling
Linux Weekly News focuses on substantive technical content, like today's
article on the Linux kernel's use of the switch statement:
[https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/794944/a5770e282352a2e6/](https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/794944/a5770e282352a2e6/)

Or today's article on the CTF debugging format. They're pretty much the only
resource aimed at intermediate or advanced developers that's written to be
highly technical but not academic.

------
pjmlp
I have been a subscriber since 1997.

Even when my focus switched back to Windows, I kept subscribing to it (there
were a few times failed to renew though), because I saw value on them.

Sad to see it go, apparently we weren't enough to save them, on a generation
that doesn't want to pay for their tools.

Free beer tools, free beer information, free beer everywhere.

And then good quality stuff just vanishes.

~~~
IloveHN84
Well, considering the boom of streaming services across young generation,
that's a free attack.

Other reformulated: People change interests. Unfortunately Apple is taking the
cake of the most desirable gadgets manufacturer and of course Linux never got
that traction (how many years have we read about 'This is the year of Linux
Desktop'?).

~~~
IloveHN84
The worse part is when a Big $$$ Corp uses free tools and never pays back to
those who worked hard. Most of the Cloud Services are using opensource and
free tools to gain billions of dollars yearly, but how much do the Linux
community gets back? Maybe $25K once in a while

~~~
Arnt
Are you personally a part of the linux community? I mean: Do you maintain some
free tool, or are you essentially like those big corps who use free tools and
never pay pack?

~~~
geocar
This is a tough question, at least for me. I do maintain a number of pieces of
Free software, and have contributed (sometimes significantly) to a number of
applications with wide(ish) use.

I once got a kind note once from someone working in the film industry who told
me my mtf/bkf tool saved their renders after a particularly nasty blunder
involving their cluster and backup servers. I'm sure this probably saved them
a quarter-million dollars or more, but none of that savings made it my way.

And outside of that one email, over the last nearly thirty years I've received
nothing else but abuse and nit. Forks, sure. Patches, a few. But the
overwhelming attitude of the open source community is that I work for free, or
fuck you.

Well, fuck you guys right back!

HN isn't unique in believing there's some kind of virtue if you can get one
over on your fellow man and make a buck on his or her back. Everyone seems to
be like that. And if someone complains about it, it turns personal quick,
often attacking the economics as you have: Have I contributed more than I've
taken? Has anyone? General criticisms of whataboutism and entitlement
notwithstanding, this slippery slope doesn't go anywhere good, and despite how
well-meaning your question might have been, the reality is it's never enough.
Nobody does anything anymore who hasn't stood on the backs of someone else.

This sucks. It sucks bad that Facebook and Google got me to work for free. And
to sell ads, no less. How ashamed am I of _that_?

~~~
Arnt
You emphasise free with an upper-case F. What does that emphasis really mean?
I don't mean "well, gnu", I mean what is the deepest meaning of that emphasis?

Do you, for example, think it's good or bad if others have the freedom to use
your software to do things you heartily dislike? Or if users you heartily
dislike have the freedom to use your software?

~~~
geocar
_Dislike_? I mean, I don't like strawberries, but I wouldn't think of
prohibiting anyone from enjoying them. Why should I care?

But, no, I don't believe other people should have the Freedom to do things I
think are _Wrong_. I don't think anyone believes that.

What exactly do you want to argue? Nobody is saying Google or Facebook is
violating the letter of the law (here), but they are certainly abusing our
goodwill. Shame on us for not setting the terms finely enough? Or shame on
them for being dicks?

------
mindfulplay
It's really interesting to note that on the same day that MSDN Magazine said
they are ceasing publication, Linux Journal says too..

Completely random but interesting.

~~~
pts_
Magazines all over are obsoleted unfortunately.

~~~
watersb
MSDN Magazine was published by Microsoft?

I was a subscriber for about five years. Very deep dive, very Microsoft
culture.

LJ was an independent magazine, I think. That is, not paid for by Linux
Foundation or major distributors like IBM or Canonical. Ad and subscription
support.

------
guiambros
Huge bummer; I've used to read LJ for many years and have fond memories. Hope
they release the entire archive before shutting down for good.

* edit 1: a better link would be [https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/linux-journal-ceases-pu...](https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/linux-journal-ceases-publication-awkward-goodbye), directly to the article.

* edit 2: also, lots more comments from staff and readers on Kyle's twitter feed, at [https://twitter.com/kylerankin](https://twitter.com/kylerankin)

~~~
bsagdiyev
They had/have a script that would let you download the recent edition via CLI,
I don't think the panel works anymore to grab the PDFs but I used their script
as a base to grab all the past issues and keep them backed up, I'm glad I did
that now.

Edit: I spoke too soon, looks like they opened the page up for anyone to grab
them now. Check it:
[https://secure2.linuxjournal.com/pdf/dljdownload.php](https://secure2.linuxjournal.com/pdf/dljdownload.php)

~~~
boramalper
Can you download them without subscription? Or if I became a subscriber, would
I be able to download previous issues too?

~~~
bsagdiyev
It sounds like I may have been mistaken and it is still walled off. There is
an archive of issues up to 2018 here:
[https://secure2.linuxjournal.com/ljarchive/LJArchive2018.zip](https://secure2.linuxjournal.com/ljarchive/LJArchive2018.zip)
\-- I know this works for sure since I downloaded it from a server of mine a
few hours ago. Since the main issue download page is still restricted to
members it seems, I'll hold off on sharing my mirrored copy of all the
previous issues just so I'm not being a dick.

------
grepgeek
Did they try to ask for donation? Linux Journal has a huge reader base most of
who probably grew up in the 90s and early 2000s. Most of these readers are now
probably working professionals and earning well enough to donate a small
amount to Linux Journal on a monthly or yearly basis to keep this journal
running.

~~~
nabakin
Looks like they have a patreon
[https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=10705728](https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=10705728)

~~~
ilaksh
Yep, currently around 200 patrons at $1153 per month total.

Compare that to, for example, the top 200 "adult" (porn) projects on Patreon:
[https://graphtreon.com/patreon-creators/adult-
games](https://graphtreon.com/patreon-creators/adult-games)

One example would be DarkCookie with "SummerTime saga", a "dating sim" at
around $50,000 US.

Or another example at 769 patrons and $2,287 per month: "Porn Empire is a
simulation/management with light RPG elements where you play as an amateur
porn producer. Start small, shoot amateur porn and as you progress, you earn
more money, buy better equipment, pick up better girls and train them"

If people really cared they would have signed up. But the proof is in the
pudding. What people really care about is totally different from what they say
publicly. What they really care about, apparently, if you follow the money, is
interactive cartoon porn.

I wonder if Patreon would consider diverting a small amount of the porn money
to worthy causes like Linux Journal.

~~~
nemothekid
> _What they really care about, apparently, if you follow the money, is
> interactive cartoon porn._

But, according to the link you sent, the global top 100 only has 15 NSFW
creators. People seem way more interested in Podcasts and YouTube videos.

~~~
ilaksh
Right. Sorry. What people care about is probably something like this ranking:

\- podcasts

\- YouTube

\- porn

\- Skyrim mods

\- Minecraft mods

\- Instagram models

... several other bullet points ....

\- journalism

~~~
cameronbrown
The real issue is the we've forgotten what real journalism looks like. Nobody
wants to pay.

~~~
kebman
I beg to differ. There's just more competition, and the bar for entering is
lower. And so you get a lot of chaff. But there are serious journalists with
high standards and integrity out there that thrive on the donation model, such
as Timcast. Now there's a guy who actually meets up where it happens! Add to
this that often it's not needed to send someone out, because you can always
read some random guy's twitter. We don't exactly have less access to news or
reporting. The problem is the filtering. But I'm not sad for it. Not one bit!
Because it has revealed to us just how things were filtered in the past by the
big giants. Not so anymore.

Other than that, you have to remember that there's been a pretty painful phase
of adaptation with new and emergent technology. This means a lot of the old
bastions have fallen, or are trying to figure out how to cope with the new
media reality. Either way tabloids will always sell more than real news,
sadly. They also did during the heyday of serious broadsheets, and there's not
really any indication that it's going to change in the near future. There are
some noble efforts to fight the fake news agenda, that tries to pick apart the
rabble of the tabloids, such as Snopes -- until you realise that they're also
extremely biased. So in the end, you're left with thinking for yourself, which
can be both a blessing and a curse. Probably more of the latter if you believe
in UFO's and crystal healing...

~~~
cameronbrown
I support Timcast because of how refreshing and real his journalism is. I
actually had him in mind as an example of a real journalist when I posted the
above comment. But it's still going to be an upwards battle, there's a few
good ones like Tim, but not nearly enough to replace what we used to call the
journalism industry, most of which has turned to mush in past decades.

~~~
Nasrudith
I am afraid it was mush long before I was born even. That internet platforms
could beat it isn't a praise of the platforms but an utter indictment of their
quality - if they had it they could survive regardless of medium.

~~~
cameronbrown
I have a hunch that internet platforms are making the media show it's true
colours by revealing how shoddy it is in comparison. The amount of constant
smear attacks against new media personalities and big tech to mind. Not that I
dislike criticism of big tech, but notice how it wasn't a problem for them
until YouTubers (political or not) really started affecting their bottom line
as less people go to the news for "entertainment".

Also, say what you want about PewDiePie, but he was able to go toe-to-toe with
The Wall Street Journal and win (at least in terms of views and reputation).
This just shows how much they've lost control.

------
sohkamyung
Full goodbye message at [1]

[1] [https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/linux-journal-ceases-
pu...](https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/linux-journal-ceases-publication-
awkward-goodbye)

------
tonystubblebine
Kyle! I'm so sorry to hear this. It's a long shot, but I'm interested to see
if we have the resources now to give this another life. I FB'd you about it,
which is I think now a dumb way to reach you.

~~~
tonystubblebine
It might not be financially possible, but if it were, I'm curious what the
community reaction would be.

Essentially, as a fan of LJ, would you pay a $5 subscription to Medium to see
Linux Journal continue there with maybe (I'm estimating w/o knowing traffic
numbers) 15 new articles per month?

LJ's editor, Kyle, and I both lived north of San Francisco when he was writing
for O'Reilly and I was working there. And that's what I pitched him: the basic
Medium offer is very O'Reilly-like, at least compared to the general web.
There's a simple trade-off. Publish behind a metered paywall (very un-GPL, but
O'Reilly books are their own kind of paywall), and in exchange get money to
invest in the quality of the articles.

I'm kind of iffy on the details beyond that. I helped start a programming
publication on Medium recently and I don't know if the right thing to do would
be to have LJ be separate or be inside that publication. But I do know that I
see a lot of Linux publishing where the articles seem light. I think money to
the author (or maybe it's money to an editor) would help that.

But obviously, there's the flip side which is that culturally there's a bias
that information be free. :shrug: I just want information to be accurate! And
given the number of Linux pubs, I think at least one of them has got to be in
a situation where both the quality and the check book would be improved inside
Medium.

------
Waterluvian
The website layout is counter intuitive on mobile. Anyone else wondering where
the article is, tap on the red header picture.

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
Thanks, the layout is no better on web. Direct link:
[https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/linux-journal-ceases-
pu...](https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/linux-journal-ceases-publication-
awkward-goodbye)

------
deca6cda37d0
They should contact the team from archive.org to make sure everything is
archived properly.

~~~
jonah-archive
We're on it :)

~~~
Jerry2
Bless you. And this reminded me to donate to Archive again.

Please, folks, donate to Archive so we don't lose all the amazing things
they've archived over the decades.

As for LJ, so sad to see them go. I was a subscriber since 2012 or so. I'm
still hopeful someone buys out their assets and resurrects the journal at
least in an online-only form.

------
vertis
I used to be a loyal subscriber to Linux Journal and would await every issue.
Then I started getting junk mail from (if memory serves me) ACM. When I
pressed them about it they revealed that they'd gotten my physical address
from Linux Journal.

I cancelled my subscription and never picked up another copy.

I can't help wonder how many other people got annoyed at that kind of
behaviour given the cross over between Linux and Privacy.

Note: I'll still mourn it's loss because it had a huge impact on my teenage
years.

~~~
justin66
Letters from the ACM. That must have been so hard for you.

~~~
vertis
It's the principle more than anything. I gave LJ my address so they could
deliver my magazine (that I paid for) not so they could sell it to someone
else.

~~~
isostatic
Yet many on HN despise the GDPR, which was designed for exactly this type of
data misuse

------
nerdponx
Issue download archive:
[https://secure2.linuxjournal.com/pdf/dljdownload.php](https://secure2.linuxjournal.com/pdf/dljdownload.php)

If you have a big hard drive sitting around somewhere, please save these! I'll
see if I can't get them uploaded to IPFS myself eventually. (edit: Got too
excited, should probably wait and see what they're planning to do w/ respect
to licensing)

~~~
rhblake
The PDF downloads aren't working, but the HTML archive (all issues, 1-301)
works fine:
[https://secure2.linuxjournal.com/ljarchive/LJ/](https://secure2.linuxjournal.com/ljarchive/LJ/)

There's also a ZIP with issues 1-293 (March 1994 to December 2018):
[https://secure2.linuxjournal.com/ljarchive/LJArchive2018.zip](https://secure2.linuxjournal.com/ljarchive/LJArchive2018.zip)
(805 MB)

~~~
jonah-archive
We're pulling them into the Internet Archive now. Very sad to see this one
go... lots of memories.

------
lovelearning
Isn't there any service that allows one to subscribe to baskets of magazines
by topics, and handles payment distribution to them with some mutual
agreements? I think many of these online mags suffer because there are too
many of them each with its own payment schedule, and people don't really like
to set up dozens of subscriptions.

~~~
povertyworld
I had hoped Apple News+ would be a way to access and compensate all the great
small niche magazines like the stuff you see in Casa Magazines in Manhattan.
Instead it was the most generic stuff that's in every supermarket check out
line. I know they have to appeal to a broad range of people, but you'd think
Apple would appreciate all those music, art, and culture magazines. Maybe
there was no easy way to include them, but for a company with that many
resources they should have found a way.

~~~
Kaslyn
I agree that Apple's News service is disappointingly pedestrian. The reason
for its mediocrity illustrates the problem that original publishing has with
the current market. When these mega corporations post their yearly earnings,
those earnings are the result of a focus on the lowest common denominator. The
Art, Music, Culture stuff doesn't mean much aside from marketing. Any business
that gets its primary funding through niche markets withers after they scale
to their maximum sustainable size.

------
sn41
Very strange. Early yesterday morning, I thought out of nowhere: "hey! around
2011 or so, our lounge in our organization used to have Linux Journal. Wonder
what happened to that subscription?" So sad to see this happen. I personally
would like this to continue, as I am sure many of my generation of
programmers.

------
smoyer
I think it's time for me to retire from engineering.

~~~
akulbe
Mister Moyer! Long time no talk, my friend. Please don't retire. Between you
and Colin H., I learned a _lot_. I'm grateful!

~~~
smoyer
Calling me "mister" was never required (and makes me feel old). Working for
start-ups (or start-ups within large companies as was the case with ARRIS gave
me the opportunity to constantly teach people my job and then create a new one
for myself. I don't have the personality to repeatedly do anything so this was
pretty ideal. How are you doing (I haven't logged into LinkedIn for a while)?
Still out hiking the beautiful NorthWest?

------
acollins1331
What a bleak point of view. Why is it a battle against tech giants? Just don't
use Google shit if it bothers you. There's more FOSS material out there than
ever before and it's easier to use too. Why can't everyone win? The consumer
that wants some crappy Google service and someone like us that wants to
download their stuff from GitHub? Why do tech giants HAVE to lose for us to
feel good?

------
nashashmi
They have shutdown before about 1.5 years ago. Then a private investment group
took over.

[https://itsfoss.com/linux-journal-discontinued/](https://itsfoss.com/linux-
journal-discontinued/)

------
DonHopkins
Looks like Linux Toady's httpd server is taking a knee in sympathy.

[https://www.linuxtoday.com/](https://www.linuxtoday.com/)

------
AdmiralAsshat
I started subscribing to them due to a Black Friday discount. I wish I had
read them longer, as they seemed to be a practical, valuable resource for
developing my skillset.

I'm also sad to see them go because they were one of the few magazines that
offered an EPUB download option, so that I could read them on my Kobo. Does
anyone know of any other digital magazine distributions that offer the same?

------
kraig911
Linux Journal I think putting the magazines out with live cd's of linux
mandrake in 1998 is a huge part of why i'm able to feed my family today. I put
a computer together and ran out of money to buy windows... Thank you guys for
that.

------
ashayh
Oh no. I've been a digital subscriber for years! I hope they release their
archives.

------
bubblehed
I'm sad to see LJ go. I have been reading this on and off since the 1990s, not
long after I received my first floppy disk with Slackware on it from a friend.
I failed to renew this year. Now I wish that I would have.

------
akulbe
This makes me sad. I _loved_ this magazine, and looked forward to every issue.

------
acd
I hope we can invent new revenue models to support quality journalism! We need
free as in freedom press which does not get paid through ads.

Sad to see Linux journal close down. It was a very good magazine!

------
kazinator
> Linux Journal Ceases Publication

... again.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15826220](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15826220)

~~~
Nemo_bis
I suppose London Trust Media is not bankrupt, so is Linux Journal LLC free to
be sold? It's sad to lose jobs etc. but at least a non-profit caretaker to
host a static copy shouldn't be too hard.

------
padraic7a
There seems to be a crossover between Linux Journal and Purism. Is that just a
coincidence / confluence or was there a formal / funding relationship?

~~~
johnmarcus
He works full time for Purism, he was only a contributor from what I gathered
in his last farewell.

~~~
padraic7a
Yeah, Lunduke got involved in both relatively recently too.

------
new_guy
I'd never heard of them before seeing it here, but it's probably something I
would have paid for. Maybe it was a lack of advertising?

------
ape4
There is still Linux Magazine [http://www.linux-
magazine.com](http://www.linux-magazine.com)

------
bArray
In terms of archiving efforts... How big is the server? Would be great to keep
this mirrored somewhere.

~~~
cwilby
Posts are currently being archived to
[https://archive.org](https://archive.org). I was curious about this too, I
found a blog post from 2010: [https://blog.archive.org/2010/07/27/the-fourth-
generation-pe...](https://blog.archive.org/2010/07/27/the-fourth-generation-
petabox/)

Some mention of Docker recently in their technical blog.

[https://blog.archive.org/category/technical](https://blog.archive.org/category/technical)

------
steve19
This makes me so sad. Would be great if the magazines pdf could be uploaded to
the Internet archive.

------
pts_
I thought the bash trap command article was a part of a long goodbye. That was
indeed awkward.

------
johnnyAghands
Sad to see this go; any recommendations for a good alternative available in
Canada?

------
imode
Better call Jason Scott. :(

------
droithomme
It was a good journal that I enjoyed. I salute them.

------
YeahSureWhyNot
and patreon is down for maintenance when this article is on HN main page

------
beaconfield
whoa - this is very sad indeed...

------
xiaoxiae
N. C

------
johnmarcus
idk, i just read this article from top to bottom
[https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/what-linux-journals-
res...](https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/what-linux-journals-resurrection-
taught-me-about-foss-community) and quite frankly from the attitude expressed
in that article, I'm not too surprised at the outcome. There is a very elitist
and condescending tone - which is vaguely masked by "learnings", but if you
continue reading, is still clearly there at his heart. New people coming to
"Foss" are still "frat party like keggers" apparently that spit on nerds and
need to learn how to dork out harder, while there are supposedly still "nerds"
that lack the proper skills to socialize with others. That was his final
takeaway.

I think the opposite is true - millennials (if I may) appear to be one of the
most compassionate demographic groups in society. If you worked for any modern
startup, you would see they care deeply about minorities of every angle in
society - LGBT, Women's equal Pay, Black Lives Matter, etc...these are all
initiative of the "newcomers" whom haven't been around since 1996.

In contrast, he writes "These days, you're just as likely to see popular kids,
jocks and MBAs using technology and writing software. There's even a
"brogrammer" designation given to software developers who culturally are more
akin to fraternity members. "

Are there brogrammers? For certain, they exist - but they are actually a tiny
minority, if you pay attention. It's a stereotypical cliche that is humorous,
but by far are not representative of most software developers in 2019.

I think the hostile attitude that somehow we're "not cool enough purists"
because we still need to work for closed source companies in order to pay the
rent and feed our families. It's _that_ sort of attitude that sinks Linux
ships. The linux that has thrived is the linux that realizes it needs to co-
exist for a very long tail journey until business models - the way capitalist
systems work at their very core - are able to transform.

I _wish_ we could all work for altruistic companies like Purism, but the truth
of the matter is the past 25 years of Linux Journal's existence was paid for
by subscribers, that get this, worked for non-FOSS companies. That's the
reality.

I'm not trying to take away from Kyle's contribution from the Linux Community,
or say that Linux Journal shutting down is a good thing in any way. I just
think it needs to be said that Linux Journal failed because Linux Journal
failed - it didn't appeal to enough people in enough ways. Didn't attract
modern developers to be interested in it's articles. And heck, didn't appeal
to people outside of programming - which, btw, is actually the key to
successfully moving Linux in the upward direction. You can't expect all of
society to "top level nerds". Some people need to dance. Some people need to
paint. Some people need to pick up the heaps of commercial trash at 5am. All
of these people have computers, and any failure to appeal to them is the
authors faults, not their own. Linux thrives when it recognizes this - Ubuntu,
Mint, Manjaro, PopOS!...these are the platforms becoming the most popular
desktops - and for the first time making Linux desktops feasible for the
dancers of the world - because they put down their elitist 'hollier than
though because I was there at the start' and 'you must obey the 10
Commandments of FOSS in all parts of your life' attitudes.

Sorry to be such a *ick here, I don't intend to rub salt in the wound. I hope
it's received more as constructive feedback than a low blow. Just calling it
as I read it.

------
trilila
Linux journal, firefox and others are all victims of the free of charge
obsession of the foss movement, and they all struggle financially. Hoards of
developers want to escape their jobs and join wilderness of independent
software development, yet they write software that’s free of charge, reducing
scarcity and enabling their cloud corporate overlords to monopolise everything
they touch at near zero licensing costs.

End the free of charge part of foss and save these great products by charging
at least enough to stay afloat.

~~~
nfoz
How do you propose that we charge for FOSS?

~~~
majewsky
Universal Basic Income would be a start. I for one would _love_ to do FOSS
development full-time, or at least 75% part-time next to a small salaried job.

~~~
trilila
Well yes, but until that happens we need to keep FOSS afloat somehow.

~~~
0xdeadbeefbabe
Won't it float because it is better? I mean I don't have a magic solution
except that I'm inclined to remove the F from FOSS.

------
pvaldes
Hum... all I remember is that Linux Journal closed years ago.

Moral of the history: Don't say that you close if is not true. You'll lose a
good chunk of your readers even if you reopen later

