Other options?

Other options?

Posted Jul 30, 2002 21:02 UTC (Tue) by BogusUser ((unknown), #2981)
In reply to: Limit the weekly edition by nas
Parent article: LWN status update

I am somewhat worried about the subscription idea - I'm not sure that you can charge enough to get a decent revenue stream.

I think your main assets are:
- your demonstrated ability to build community and the community you've built
- as a result of LWN, you have credibility to talk about Linux and open source
- the fact that you have intelligent stuff to say about Linux and open source as a result of processing mounds of information about it over the last few years

The subscription idea lets you treat LWN like it's the point of your commercial life. It might be the case that you need to find a new commercial focus, but maybe it can be a commercial focus that builds on LWN as one of your key assets. That way you aren't walking away from this great thing that you've built or wasting this great asset. Instead, you get to continue with LWN but get your money elsewhere. It very well may mean you end up having to scale LWN back.

You may have already thought about this or plan on doing this. I think it might be viable to pursue the analyst route. A lot of analysts have publications where they demonstrate their knowledge of a field or industry to the larger community. Although you don't use LWN to pontificate in the same way that the Analysts public reports are used, I do think that LWN gives you credibility. It also means that you have a wealth of insights gained from all the information your have processed and published over the years. You should be able to capitalize on both the insights and your credibility perhaps in the form of custom reports about the technical direction of Linux and the commercial future of open source - to large enterprise IT departments, telecom companies, software development houses, etc. You can also offer to do custom research.

Maybe you might choose to affiliate with one of the analyst houses? I would suggest IDC. Last time I looked Al Gillen was Research Director for Systems Software at IDC, focusing on Linux. He may be an ally. Maybe co-host exec briefing sessions with IBM's WebSphere group? You can do consulting in evaluating whether open sourcing code makes sense in a given commercial context or come up with a tool kit / methodology that you sell for measuring the likelihood that a proprietary software project that runs on Linux violates the GPL.

I'm not sure if this appeals or is a better idea than selling subscriptions. There are other vendors doing this already but LWN gives you a significant competitive asset. It's just my two cents.

Very best of luck to you. I always thought you've done an amazing job with this community.

- Kim Morrison

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