The LinuxCon media panel

The opening question was simple: what was the most significant Linux-related story in the last ten years? Sean wasted no time in naming the SCO case - it is, he says, "the story that keeps on giving"; seven years later and he's still writing about it. Steven, instead, cited IBM's endorsement of Linux and statement that it would be investing $1 billion in the platform. That announcement, he says, legitimized the platform and made it possible for people in companies worldwide to consider using it without getting into trouble. Jason pointed at the birth of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, while Ryan talked about the onset of "mobile ubiquity" and the near dominance that Linux has in that area. Ryan also mentioned MeeGo as an example of how large companies have come to appreciate the value of collaboration.

Zonker, instead, nominated the rise of Ubuntu. He said that Ubuntu forced the other distributors to focus on community, something they had not been doing well before; this is a claim which was not universally accepted by the audience. At this point, Sean jumped in to say that Ubuntu only took off because of the seemingly unending delays in the Debian Sarge release. Had Sarge gone out on time, he says, we would not be hearing so much about Ubuntu now. Steven added that Ubuntu succeeded because it was an attempt at commercializing Debian from the outside; earlier attempts from the inside (he mentioned Ian Murdock in particular) were seriously attacked by the community and didn't get very far.

Moving on: what is the big story for Linux today? The consensus answer seemed to be "Android." Steven claims that ChromeOS is going to be a big deal. He also mentioned the license compliance program just announced by the Linux Foundation which, he says, will speed Linux adoption.

The reporters were then asked about numbers from analysts, which, when it comes to Linux, are somewhat controversial. How do they cope with that uncertainty? Ryan responded that these numbers (covering Linux adoption and such) are not really illustrative and are missing a lot of context. Beyond that, they are the product of companies with conflicts of interest; analyst firms have paying customers who have an interest in how those numbers come out, so the result is not objective. Sean said he does not trust the numbers; they are always wrong, so he does not use them. Jason wished for better numbers on enterprise subscription sales, while Zonker criticized analyst firms for refusing to come up with a solid methodology for counting unpaid Linux use. Steven asked simply: who cares about these numbers anyway?

It was asked: it seems to be harder to get reporters' attention for Linux-related stories in recent years, what are reporters looking for? Sean suggested that there are really only ten Linux stories that he writes and rewrites repeatedly; one of them is "Mark Shuttleworth said..." He also said that he always covers what the big vendors are doing, but news of the form "application X now runs on Linux" is not really interesting. Zonker noted that, while more reporters (with less expertise) are covering Linux due to its increasingly mainstream nature, a lot of reporters have also been laid off in recent years. Steven said that we're seeing a natural progression; like the radio magazines of the 1920's or the Internet magazines of the 1990's, much Linux news has simply become mundane and boring.

Steven also said that there is little interest by publishers in "serious" stories about Linux, a statement that Zonker seconded. It is necessary to write "popular" stories that will draw advertisers. Linux companies, it seems, are not big buyers of online advertising; that affects coverage too. Several of the panelists said that there is still a firm wall between advertising and editorial, but that claim (in your editor's opinion) seems somewhat contradicted by the fact that they have a hard time pitching stories which do not appeal to advertisers. Jason said that the publishing business model is, in general, in trouble and hasn't yet figured out the changes that have come with the Internet.

As an aside, Zonker asked how many members of the audience run AdBlock (quite a few hands were raised). Those people were told that they are "killing publishing, seriously."

Next question: who is the audience for what the panelists are writing? Ryan said that ars technica has a highly diverse audience, since it is not just a Linux-related site. Their readers are technology enthusiasts who (advertisers are told) will take what they learn to the workplace. Jason writes for enterprise information technology workers, while Zonker writes for a number of different publications (including LWN) with a variety of audiences. Steven, too, writes for many audiences.

What about companies becoming their own publishers? Steven claimed that people are becoming confused by publications which really just carry the company line, as opposed to what a real reporter would say. Readers are not asking often enough where a particular bit of news comes from. Ryan noted that open source companies are much more transparent than many others, so information tends to be more accessible; community members can use that information to get the word out, reducing the need for traditional journalism. But Steven noted that these companies always have something that they are not saying - he mentioned silent fixes in Mozilla releases - so there is still a need for people who will dig through stuff. Zonker said that what's often missing is context; he suggested that people will wander into (for example) the GNOME census story without understanding all that's going on.

At that point, time ran out for this standing-room-only session. In your editor's opinion, it was an interesting look at how the more traditional media sees our community and the pressures that reporters are working under. Those people, too, are operating in a rapidly changing world; they have the challenging task of documenting those changes while being very much in the middle of them.