Will the real Linux Gazette please stand up?

Posted Nov 6, 2003 2:20 UTC (Thu) by wolfrider (guest, #3105) [Link]

--Everybody change your links to the new site:
http://linuxgazette.net/index.html

Posted Nov 6, 2003 17:02 UTC (Thu) by AnswerGuy (guest, #1256) [Link]

It's a sticky issue. I would prefer NOT to embroil the Linux Journal in any backlash or recriminations. I don't intend to cancel my subscription to Linux Journal at this point. The events at linuxgazette.COM seem to be driven my Phil (and just one of his staff who is simply being ordered to do this).

I genuinely have no animosity towards Phil. I'm surprised that he's taking such a proprietary attitude towards the work that we've all put into this community publication for so long. I personally think that Linux Journal is a far greater accomplishment (and, surely, infinitely more lucrative).

Writing to LJ and threatening to cancel your subscription (or just doing so outright) is unlikely to resolve this issue. Many of the staffers at LJ are already concerned about the bad PR that this seems certain to garner.

I would have suggested that people post their initial feedback to the feedback at the CMS (Drupal-driven) lg.COM site. Unfortunately the recent censorship of those forums seems to make that gesture futile. E-mailing the lg.NET staff would be welcome, but not terribly useful.

Since lg.NET has no corporate infrastructure (no bank accounts, etc) we cannot take donations. We're an all-volunteer organization. So, the question becomes: What sorts of *constructive* support can people offer us. My suggestions: Link to linuxgazette.net. Contact any mirrors that haven't already updated their links. Send *polite* and moderated feedback to SSC. Tell other Linux news sites about the story. Read BOTH the lg.NET and lg.COM versins of Issue #96 and make an informed choice about your own preferences. Prepare for the possibility that the old staff (now at lg.NET) might be compelled to change the name of our publication.

This last issue is ultimately the worst that can happen. Our right to publish this material is guaranteed under the OPL (open publication license). We (at lg.NET) feel that changing *our* name would be confusing to the readership and the market at large. Even that would be acceptable if the lg.COM provided prominent links to such a new site on their index page, masthead and in their FAQ. Given the recent censorship of the lg.COM feedback forum, even that small courtesy seems unlikely.

The sticky issue here is: how much do we, as a community, hold LJ accountable for the actions of one person ... even when the person is it's founder and publisher, it's owner?

Jim Dennis, The Linux Gazette "Answer Guy"

Posted Nov 6, 2003 18:13 UTC (Thu) by holstein (subscriber, #6122) [Link]

I was about to subscribe to LinuxJournal, but this story kinda make me keep this on hold. One of the thing I like about Linux Journal is exactly their habitual stance against this kind of behavior...

So, I'll wait before putting my money where my mouth is... or not... er, or something like that!

Posted Nov 7, 2003 6:53 UTC (Fri) by bajw (guest, #11712) [Link]

Posted Nov 6, 2003 17:32 UTC (Thu) by AnswerGuy (guest, #1256) [Link]

He might be visually impaired but not blind. Perhaps the Drupal-driven site's fonts (small), wording, and nagivation are making it harder for him. Also the Drupal-driven site seems to require javascript to traverse some links or provide other functionality and many blind people still prefer to use lynx or other curses mode browsers.

Over the years I never heard a complaint that the old Linux Gazette was too "old-fashioned." To the contrary all the feedback I've ever seen has expressed a preference for its simplicity, its focus on content rather than "dynamic" features. The fact is that all the bells and whistles on the web have made it far less accessible. (One thing I appreciated about LWN's migration to Quixote is the degree to which they avoided such problems).

BTW: the lg.COM site should not be taken as a denigration on Drupal's features. Drupal seems to be capable and can be more visually appealing. DebianPlanet is a drupal-driven site. I haven't seen any Javascript problems those.

Posted Nov 6, 2003 20:08 UTC (Thu) by AnswerGuy (guest, #1256) [Link]

We have discussed ways to provide online feedback while continuing to fundamentally be a periodical with regular, static issues. We will continue to explore ways to do that through our new site at linuxgazette.net.

One idea has been to create something more like a wiki page for each article. The idea is that the original article, as published, would be protected, and that all commentary on it would be in an editable region below the original. The problem with threads is that they grow ever longer, generally digressing and becoming less relevant --- especially after about 20 comments or three levels of nesting. The idea of the wiki would encourage people to retain only those corrections, updates and comments that are relevant.

We've also considered creating a wiki area for the development of new articles. The idea would be that a prospective author would create their wiki page (and presumably "subscribe" to it for notification of updates). They would then write a draft or outline; others (editors) could then comment on by simply editing that page. When the editorial staff *and the author(s)* reach consensus on the readiness of each article it's scheduled for inclusion in the next issue.

Thus the Linux Gazette doesn't "become" a wiki (or other CMS-driven site) but some sort of CMS becomes part of the production and feedback process.

The "wiki" pages would become part of the site in perpetuity --- so any links or updates to websites, projects, and software in the original article could be maintained by the community at large (without forcing people to wade through endless streams of comment threads). All issues would include links to the canonical home of the article so all readers could easily check for updates even years after the original article was published.

I know I make this sound all wonderfully easy, elegant, and, well, "wonderful." However, the issues are more complex than that. The basic concept doesn't mirror or scale well.

If everyone reading each issue (from a mirror, on their PDA, or from one of the Debian back-issue packages, for example) felt the need to check up on each article --- it would generate orders of magnitude more traffic back to our home site. We're not commercial and not trying to sell advertising (in fact we have no mechanism to accept financial donations). So driving too much traffic back to our home site is counter-productive.

(Realistically I suspect that about one in ten readers would feel compelled to check for updates just after reading an article --- or, conversely that the average reader would only find a few items in any given issue sufficiently relevant to their immediate needs to need any such updates. So I may be over-exaggerating this problem).

Ultimately our goal is to be an even more vital part of the LDP. We want relevant and useful information to be available to all Linux users in a format that's more interesting and just different than the formal FAQs, HOWTOs and guides.

Collectively we (the people who've done virtually all of the editorial work for the last 80 issues or so) don't feel that the drupal driven site comes even close to meeting our needs. Unfortunately, we're just volunteers (and only a small group at that) so we can make these improvements overnight.

Please understand that we still deeply appreciate the sponsorship by Phil Hughes and SSC for all these years. However, to us it has become apparent that we must move on and continue to grow. (To him we look like a bunch of long-haired upstarts that are hijacking a franchise that he believes was given to him, personally, by John Fisk; and probably that we're a bunch of Luddites impeding progress, as well).

We recognize that there are two major sides to this story and have strived to understand both. We feel that we (all of us including Phil) where entrusted with the Linux Gazette. We believe that we are trustees of this community project rather than "owners" of it. (We also, generally, don't have an inflated view of our importance --- we're just a little monthly webazine that is only a tiny part of the Linux community; and there are others like Linux Focus that are arguably just as important).

There is also another side to this story --- that of our readership. We regret the confusion and disruption that these events have caused for them.

Jim Dennis, The Linux Gazette "Answer Guy"

(BTW: I did NOT pick that apellation --- and was rather surprised and honored in an embarassed sort of way when it was first applied to me; I've considered that "title" also to be a responsibility --- a goal to strive for).

Posted Nov 6, 2003 20:52 UTC (Thu) by rickmoen (subscriber, #6943) [Link]

ccyoung wrote:

Why not recognize that both needs - a high quality monthly and a more interactive format - are both legitmate?

As Jim Dennis notes, your assumption that the Linux Gazette editors don't is incorrect. We're just trying to deal with the situation we have.

At the time we made our final decision to thank SSC for it's generous seven years of assistance and move Linux Gazette to new hosting, we'd been getting the clear message from Mr. Hughes and his webmaster that they intended to move to having only dynamic content, no monthly issues, and no editors. So, it seemed at that time necessary to move Linux Gazette if it were to continue as a magazine at all. Only after we announced our departure to them (Oct. 28) did SSC reverse policies and hurriedly assemble the rather thin November issue now observable at their site — the one that also purports to be the November Gazette. Hold that thought, please, and bear in mind the situation we were dealing with at the time.

In addition, we found that past issues (not just issue #95, Jon) had been retroactively censored without notice to (or discussion with) the staff — before or after: Requests that they explain that censorship went unanswered. Frequent contributors had started withholding articles because of what was going on between us and SSC management, and overall quality and quantity of material had noticeably declined. And the CMS, when it appeared (initially, with no magazine issue attached) just as we were mailing our departure letter, started housing past LG articles stripped of both author attributions and author copyright notices — which they mostly fixed after we politely pointed this out, though two examples remain of where SSC has wrongfully replaced authors' copyright notices with its own.

So, we gracefully thanked SSC and departed, asking for their help in an orderly transition, and for them to please assign their CMS site some other name and eventually sign over the linuxgazette.com domain -- since at the time their announced intentions were to not publish a magazine on it.

What would be truly constructive would be for SSC to follow through on their original intentions to do something radically different from the Linux Gazette magazine. That might with time become something truly great, and we at Linux Gazette would applaud it. Or, if they want to carry through with their newer policy and publish a magazine, that's perfectly fine with us too. We regret their decision to persist in using a confusing name, and wish they wouldn't do that, but we aren't likely to (say) make legal threats over that.

In general, our attitude is best described as "Two Linux sites instead of one? Good. They're different? Even better."

Posted Nov 17, 2003 2:43 UTC (Mon) by cbbrowne (guest, #10867) [Link]

It seems more effective to not need to go back on a daily? hourly? basis to see if articles have changed...

Posted Nov 14, 2003 11:20 UTC (Fri) by rickmoen (subscriber, #6943) [Link]

billg wrote:

It's worth asking why the Linux Gazette crew didn't seek to protect that name?

Names can be reserved against some certain sorts of commercial use within one's industry segment, through use of trademark law. Please hold that thought, which I'll return to in a moment (and remember that I said commercial use).

Copyright on the material that appeared in the Gazette during its time under the SSC umbrella is, presumably, accounted for by the terms of the agreement between the Gazette and SSC.

Copyright title remains with each item's author, and published material is open-source licensed under the Open Publication Licence v. 1.0. This is true of all issues of recent years. A slightly different but OPL-like licence was used before that, and contents of issues #1-8 in 1995-6 were BSD-licensed.

However, the name itself might have been trademarked years ago, making this current dispute moot.

There are more misconceptions in the Linux community over trademark law than pretty much any other, in my experience. (I'm not saying you personally are under such misconceptions.) Let's go over the matter:

1. You can establish a trademark without registration, by using it in business and establishing a brand identity for your product. This is called common-law trademark, and exists (in the USA) subject to regulation by state law. By using a distinctive mark (name, logo, style) in business for a product, you gain a limited monopoly over the use of the brand in business -- limited to your industry and the geographical area where your product is sold. Specifically, nobody else (in the same geographical area and industry) may lawfully use your mark for a competing commercial product in such a way as to mislead customers into thinking the trademark owner endorsed or produced the competing goods.

SSC has gotten into the habit of putting "TM" next to the words "Linux Gazette", which is an unregulated symbol used to indicate a common-law trademark assertion. The symbol has no legal force, and is not required to have any legal merit behind it. It should not be confused with the R-in-circle symbol, which in the USA may by law be used only next to paid-up Federally-registered marks:

2. You can register your (US-based) trademark with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), for ten years at a time for about US $300 per decade. This gives your trademark nation-wide coverage (within your industry), and I believe also some broader enforcement powers -- but the nature of what you third-party uses you can enjoin is otherwise the same. (Neither SSC nor anyone else has filed for Linux Gazette marks.)

3. The only consequence of being the first person to successfully assert a particular trademark within a given industry (with or without registration) is that you get to enjoy the monopoly over customers' impression of of that brand identity in your area of business.

4. Recently, any valid trademark has also been held to be privileged against "disparagement", defined in Black's Law Dictionary as a "false and injurious statement that discredits or detracts from the reputation of another's property, product, or business". The idea is that if your use of a trademarked image drags a valuable trademark (in what can be argued as being) through the mud, e.g., you show Mickey and Minnie Mouse in flagrante delicto, then you've committed the tort of trademark disparagement even if your usage was otherwise privileged, e.g., because it was non-commercial.

5. You may have noticed a recurring theme in the above -- maybe because I've said it before. A valid trademark (of either sort) can be used only to enjoin sale of goods offered in commerce that wave about your trademarked brand in a way tending to convince customers that you (the trademark owner) produced or endorsed the competing goods. That's it. That's all trademark gets you.

So, people often confuse two separate questions:

• Can SSC successfully assert that invented (or bought) "Linux Gazette" as a commercial brand identity -- given that it was actually invented by John Fisk as an explicitly non-commercial magazine, and which countless people including Phil Hughes have repeatedly proclaimed to be non-commercial?
• If so, so what? (The answer is that it would gain limited rights to control the brand-identity usage of that mark _in business_ to sell products. Note that LG is non-commercial.

So, finally, to respond to your comment: No trademark registration exists, a common-law trademark cannot be validly asserted (since the mark isn't used in commerce) -- and, even if it could, it could be used only to enjoin certain sorts of uses of the mark in commerce, which means the Linux Gazette magazine inherently could not infringe such a hypothetical trademark, being entirely non-commercial.

There's a tremendous amount of nonsense promulgated about trademark law. Here's Cory Doctorow of EFF, explaining trademark law and detailing just how badly people tend to misunderstand it: http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2003/08/14/trademarks.html

Example of a "trademark disparagement" legal action: http://www.chillingeffects.org/protest/notice.cgi?NoticeID=652

General overview of trademark law: http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/trademark.html

Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com