Survey responses

I suppose the Right way is to provide news://lwn.net.

(Agreed that the "subscription period" question could be phrased in a clearer way.)

It would not upset me at all if you put Google ads at the bottom in the
side-bar, there is sufficient space.

I have enjoyed reading the LCA articles. You might care to do similar ones
about other conferences.

The Grumpy Editors here - all of them - clearly have their heads and hearts in the right place on issues related to free/libre software -+but+- the writing style is blessedly free of pounding the drums and anti-[evildoer of the week] vitrol. I believe our editors see themselves as reporters, not advocates. That's a good thing; after all, this is Linux Weekly NEWS, not Linux Weekly OPINION.

I depend on LWN for prompt reporting of security flaws and fixes. Thanks, guys.

Also, there's no way to browse older articles by subject. You may want to start tagging articles by content.

-- b

I'm a long term, loyal, happy reader and I recommend LWN to others.

My main suggestion is vague and thematic rather than specific: change LWN from meaning "Linux Weekly News" to meaning "Libre Weekly News". (Okay, tongue in cheek, but...)

I'm very interested in Free Software applications whether or not they run on Linux, and I'm interested in Free Software operating systems other than Linux, and I'm interested in issues of Freedom other than as it related to Linux (e.g. patents, copyrights, DRM, censorship, network availability, search engine manipulation...).

Granted, the Linux Kernel Page is the brightest spot in LWN and deserves to keep its favored status, but there's no reason to discriminate against other, non-Linux-specific topics.

In fact, now that I think about it the most common source of irritation on this subject isn't content actually generated by LWN staff and contributors, but rather comments posted by readers griping about "competitors" or alternatives to Linux even when those alternatives are themselves Free Software.

But really, I have friends who run NetBSD instead of Linux and I'm interested in exploring OpenSolaris and I even, dare I say it, participate in communities which are promulgating Freedom and Free Software on Mac OS X and on Windows. It would be cool if I could recommend LWN to those folks without them wondering why I was recommending a "Linux" publication to them.

Please do not go into this community-building thing and spend too much time "enhancing" the comments sections. Maybe a cookie with "what are the new comments" would be helpfull, as one comment has requested.

Another issue that I agree, is that the article-archive needs some overhaul. Tagging articles might be one way to do that. You should definately give that a try.

Oh, despite the fact that a lot of people seem to like howto's, please do not become another www.rootprompt.org...

I can't find anything called "main articles" or "daily updates", but I assume this is what you get at http://lwn.net/, yes?

I'm very mixed about more guest authors. To date, their quality has varied widely, some splendid, some junk as far as I'm concerned, and I wish that they were held to a uniformly high standard. Further, some have a grating tendency to mimic Jon's writing style. While it works brilliantly for him, I don't enjoy reading poor imitations.

I'm a bit bothered by the positive response to the "howto" suggestions. Howtos are everywhere on the web, and while I'm sure LWN could do them better, it might just be adding to the clutter. It just doesn't seem to be a good way for LWN to distinguish itself and use its scarce resources. Further, this sort of material is best incorporated directly into the projects' documentation, I think. But maybe I have to see a few articles before judging.

I am very, very happy with LWN.

2) think of the article of Joel on features in software before removing some parts of LWN (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/12/09.html)

3) one of the things where LWN did really help me with my job is when there are articles on usefull apps or categories of app (grumpy editors): I mean I have no longer the time required to scan through the immense wealth of linux apps to find the tool I don't know of that solve my problem of the day. Many times I discovered something really useful here (or in the comments that said hey how coan you not mention program XX)

4) please add one or two more subscription levels (eg: linux-friendly-company-backed-department-director, etc...). there are some who can contribute more. please let them do it.

5) as many people here (according to results), I long to discover some articles on user mode dev and sysadmin. What I dream of is for dev: introduction article to some useful library I don't know of, or some dev tool that can change my life, for admin: stories of real-life problems and what solutions were applied. And of course the most important comments: bad solution, you should have done XX, or good solution, but you can do better if you do YY

Many of the Lwn-kernel-articles explaining details of how the kernel works are unmatched anywhere else.

The grumpy Editor series is among the finest reviews of software found anywhere, they work so well because our Editor fundamentally "gets it", he is one of us. I have no interest in reading: "I never used anything other than Windows until last week --- here's my take on mutt" type articles. It also helps that our beloved editors are just plainly good writers. The articles are funny, witty, frequently tongue-in-cheek, rife with internal references and jokes and just generally on-the-level. I realize that means they're completely useless for my Grandmother who is looking for an email-client, but it means for *me* they're perfect.

The "lets-take-two-steps-back" articles are also vital. It's easy to find articles focusing on what happened this week. It's a lot harder to find articles where it shows that the author has a memory. Where the larger, longer lines are drawn. "What's up with X this decade -- where does it come from, where migth it be headed." kind of articles.

Linux in the news is often interesting, more often than not due to the intelligence of many readers here. You frequently get to hear takes on things that you'd be unlikely to find on say /. Your deliberate choice to cover only what you consider important ("Recommended reading") is brilliant. Quality beats quantity every time.

On the other hand, some other sections are distinctly non-special and in many cases there's lots better sources.

I don't particularily *care* which 3 (of the total zillion) distributions updated their libfoo to deal with the bar-vulnerability reported X weeks ago this week. I migth wonder if *my* distro has fixed the problem, but apt-get, yum or whatever tells me that.

I don't particularily *care* how to set up HylaFax 3.1.2 on a Sparc. I'm guessing perhaps 0.01% of your readers actually care, and those that do are unlikely to care at the precise moment that you choose to cover it, so don't. It's not news. Lwn is not TLDP (and shouldn't try to be)

The event-calender is worse than useless. The large major events *migth* be sligthly interesting. Those that it's remotely possible that 10% of your readers care about. Those events that Lwn would consider covering. But the local events swarm them. How large a percentage of your readers care that the Baltimore LUG has a meeting where Samba will be presented ? Lwn ain't nearly complete enough to be *useful* for local stuff either. So, what I see is something like: 5 large international actually-interesting events. 100 miniscule special-interest or extremely-limited-geographically events. And at the same time, the local events in *my* (or any one) geographic area are very very unlikely to be listed at all. My advice ? If Lwn wouldn't consider covering an event, it's not interesting enough to be included in Lwn. (put it under a "click here to see local events" if you really want to keep these at all)

I use ScrapBook, a wonderful Firefox extension that locally saves web pages, and shows titles in a tree in the sidebar.

The first title characters are very significant, in the small sidebar width: for that reason, I ask you to change your title template from

LWN: ${RealTitle}

to

${RealTitle} - LWN

because currently, each and every time I save a LWN page, I have to go in there and move the "LWN" name to the end.

Thank you for this, and mostly for your wonderful work.

Keep the good work!

Every LWN edition is an example of good journalism. I seem to be among the many subscribers unwilling to pay for content, but making an exception for LWN.

LWN is best at analysing issues with a long term dimension and of adding this depth to a new story, that is also covered elsewhere, but without the deep insight. I think the voice of LWN is heard in the community and many high profile commenters underline this fact.

Revamping the site visually would make it more appealing (no drums and whistles, but a clean, modern layout. Right now it is a clean old-fashioned layout).

The subscription rate is growing slowly. You have tried hard to improve that, but without much success. So maybe this is just the way it is. LWN is not for the masses, it's not for those reading tabloids, but it is for those who enjoy a good newspaper.

What you could do is trying to make yourself more heard outside of LWN. Marketing, stronger presence at events, guest pieces elsewhere, cooperations with other online media with the aim to bring more readers
to LWN. This costs time and energy, so a patron sponsoring this would help.
Without undermining the independence of LWN of course.

Otherwise: Just keep going. You are on good tracks.

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Thank you!

I would like article on unix/linux (in style of kernel). I.e. permission (not std level, but detailed, i.e. sticky bit, SUID/SGID bit on non files), but also the differences between SUID and SGID (not the U and G, but the more suble differences), and so on. I.e. advanced topic, probably with references on kernel and security.

On usenix' ;login: I like the report on standards (posix, austin). Could we copy it? Or have announces to major new RFCs?

One of the most useful, albeit very simple, things for me is the "One big page" link on the weekly issue - this means I don't forget to at least skim any part of the zine.

Tibs

More "Hello World with libX/langX/frameworkX" articles would be useful in the Development section. Not trying to replace the documentation of projects but a pointer to how easy/hard it to use something and give a flavour of the sort of thing that can be achieved.

Having said that I usually find the Front Page "State of FLOSS" type articles very informative and easier to keep upto date on the "big issues" than following LT or Slashdot stories over the preceding week or days.

The security articles are usually very interesting athough I only give a passing gloss over the actual advisories. Most people should be subscribed to the security feeds of the their respective distros anyway. It is useful for those big exploits though and seeing if you are affected and if your distro is being slow.

I don't tend to value the news and annoucements. Things like the calender and disrolist are useful reference though.

To me LWN is a developer friendly weekly read with a little FLOSS politics thrown in. Well worth the subscription and I wish it to continue!

You content is awesome, nobody out there is doing what you guys do. Dont be afraid to capitalize on it. I am happy to pay for the content because it is so good.

Another suggestion: put ads with the free content, but for subscribers the ads are not shown.

How about, for those articles which are freed from embargo or mailed to other users, posting a little bar at the top of the article (say, between title and body) saying "We are X subscribers short of self-funding - subscribe now?" or something? Nothing too obtrusive, but it gets the point across. (I'm not sure the embargo actually helps anything; it didn't make me subscribe - having some spare cash did that! but before that I could actually live with the delay quite happily... because what I read LWN for - and what I believe LWN's unique selling point to be - is the editorial, not the N; and that doesn't age. But having a target to aim for...)

Also, I'd like to add my voice to the pleas for comments to be a subscriber-only facility... admittedly only because of one particular commenter, but hey. ;) It's also a relatively easy (but visible, and surprisingly effective, psychologically) point of differentiation.

I'm not actively involved in free software development, so I probably have a different perspective from a lot of the readership. I am responsible for an entire (IT) company using Linux for all but administrative staff since it was founded in 2000, and for a while did all of the sysadmin in the company.

The one thing that I miss from the "olden days" is the history page. To me, it was nearly the most interesting part of the entire site, and I was quite sad to see it go (although I understand why it did).

LWN is in a fairly unique position, with the perspective (and editorial talent) to be able to put the current developments in their broader historical context. I think that it is a great service to the community as a whole, and especially to people who weren't involved from the start, to be able to see just how we got where we are today and the battles that people were fighting 5 or 10 years ago.

Keep up the good work!

Jeremy

IMHO, we already have more than enough howto sites and the like. LWN would do well to focus on its strengths.

I know that in my group, many of us had personal subscriptions before we got a group subscription.

With respect to "HOWTO" articles aimed at beginners: please don't. The only other useful, non-beginner Linux publication was Linux Journal, but they've dumbed down so much in the past six months that I have cancelled my subscription. There are LOTS of beginner 'HOWTO' articles on the web, just as there are lots of Linux magazines aimed at beginners, but precious few sites have quality yet resist the need to appeal to the lowest common denominator (well, there's one site, and this is it).

Like so many others, this is the only online resource I pay for, and I'm happy to continue to.

Second, I've noticed a deterioration of the quality of the _comments_ on
LWN. A few years ago I rated the reader comments as excellent. Over the
past year or two the signal to noise ratio has declined; I've especially
noticed negative and unpleasant posts to subscription-not-required
stories.

The best solution to this problem is to require readers to sign up
for an account at no charge if they want the privilege of commenting.
LXer.com (another excellent Linux news source) does this, and the reader
comments are respectful. It's just a great reader community with lots
of give and take, humour, insight, and just plain fun. LXer requires a
user name (it doesn't have to be your original name) and an email address.
It also requires the user to abide by their Terms of Service and Code of
Conduct.

I find the security news useful; yes, as a sysadmin I subscribe to distribution specific lists but it is useful to have a feel for overall trends.
I look at LWN, often via .rss, several times a day, but use the weekly edition to be sure not to have missed anything.
Much of the kernel page is beyond my ken, but I still read it in order to (sort of) understand the development trends.
Howtos could be useful but only if they are at a high technical level. Similarly if you can find good, very good, contributors fine, but quality before quantity.

first, I'd like to thank LWN for existing. Then, please oh please don't do
podcasts ! I can read english perfectly well, but I have troubles
understanding people (especially natives) speaking english, and then it's
easy for me to read LWN at work, whereas listening for it would not.

Finally, I'd like to underline how difficult it is to choose what kind of
articles I would like being developed in future editions: I know that
whatever the subject, if it's done by LWN it's an enjoyable reading, and
will teach me something interesting.

Cheers,
Xav

Everything else could go and I would keep coming back
for the in-depth articles on flocks and abis. Granted,
it's a niche market, and I don't know how much you're
going to grow by emphasizing it more than you do currently,
but if you could keep it at its current level then I
forsee renewing my subscription for several more years.

Thanks for all of your wonderful work so far.

Sure there are other "hardware compatibility list" projects, but they usually have vaguely useful comments and rarely cover newer stuff. I am not proposing a list, just news combined with howtos for newer gadgets not covered well elsewhere.

On the other hand, LWN has unique and high quality coverage of most events and excellent in-depth technical articles. Since Kernel Traffic went away, LWN is the only game in town for kernel coverage (following lkml isn't really an option for most of us). The file system articles by Valerie Henson was an excellent example of both easily accessible and technical in content.

Another thing that LWN is great at is the overview articles in the Grumpy Editor series. What makes them unique is the great perspective and knowledge of traditional UNIX utilities that often covers text based tools as well.

If just one thing should be improved on LWN I think it may be the site navigation. It is primitive which is a good thing, but I think that it hides things gems such as the kernel index and the timeline from casual visitors. That concept could also be expanded with a good security and vulnerability overview.

I'd also like to see something like the development page, but without the games and office suites and everything else, and more than just press releases for the compilers and development tools (Valgrind!) and IDEs and other stuff specifically for developers.

On the other hand, I've read through all the other comments so far, and aside from some "needs better navigation" comments, no one else seems to care about the search facility. So maybe it's just me...

Greg

I´d like to get all this behind one click under like "lwn weekly edition for small devices".

After downloading the edition to my 770 (with web browser) I use FBReader
to read the content. It screws some stuff up but is better in general
than the default 770 browser for this purpose.

But thanks, the "pain" in process getting the edition to my "ebook reader"
is insignificant to the benefits I achieve by being able to spend loose
time by reading LWN many mornings while sitting at bus going to work.