The Linux Foundation acquires Linux.com

[Posted March 3, 2009 by corbet]

What became of Linux.com has finally been announced: it has been sold to the Linux Foundation. "The new Linux.com site will transform in the months ahead from solely being a news source to a collaborative site that will be 'for the community, by the community.' Much like Linux itself, Linux.com will rely on the community to create and drive the content and conversation. While the Linux Foundation will host the collaboration forum, the site will feature the real Linux experts - users and developers - and give them the tools needed to connect with each other and with Linux."

The Linux Foundation acquires Linux.com

Posted Mar 3, 2009 19:15 UTC (Tue) by Flameeyes (guest, #51238) [Link]

I hope they will keep up the old articles though...

hmm. a pro-swpat group takes control of the media

Posted Mar 3, 2009 20:46 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (3 responses)

Here's where I start to worry. I'll be delighted if time proves me wrong.

LF do some mildly useful anti-swpat stuff, but almost all of their funding comes from pro-software-patent companies who fight on the same side as MS against the free software community.

The question is, how will LF's editorial control influence linux.com's coverage of software patents?

hmm. a pro-swpat group takes control of the media

Posted Mar 3, 2009 21:33 UTC (Tue) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link] (2 responses)

Jim Zemlin is an effective manager, and he works effectively for the LF board, which mainly represents large companies. The LF charter is written to give board voting control to the largest members: Platinum up to 10, Gold 3, Silver 1, At-large up to 5. On the current board, representatives of software patent holders do outnumber the kernel hackers:

Larry Augustin (investor, former CEO, VA Linux Systems)

James Bottomley, Novell/LF Technical Advisory Board

Alan Clark, Novell

Wim Coekaerts, Oracle

Masahiro Date, Fujitsu

Frank Fanzilli (board member for several proprietary
software companies)

Doug Fisher, Intel

Dan Frye, IBM

Tim Golden, Bank of America

Hisashi Hashimoto, Hitachi

Brian Pawlowski, NetApp

Chris Schlaeger, AMD

Tsugikazu Shibata, NEC

Eric Thomas, Texas Instruments

Martin Whittaker, Hewlett-Packard

Christy Wyatt, Motorola

yes, that's what I'm afraid of

Posted Mar 4, 2009 15:01 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

I saw their board and their funders and that the fee structure means that the money from the eight Platinum members eclipses all other sources of income combined.

Their money comes, by a large majority, from a Who's Who of pro-software-patent lobbyists. They're only missing Microsoft.

This raises the important question of media: how will LF's editorial control influence linux.com's coverage of software patents?

my tone

Posted Mar 4, 2009 15:46 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

Ah. You were more or less agreeing. I misread you post and though I had to defend my question :-)

The Linux Foundation acquires Linux.com

Posted Mar 4, 2009 12:43 UTC (Wed) by whitemice (guest, #3748) [Link] (2 responses)

Yawn... an "ideaforge"... rolls-eyes. A news aggregator (got dozens of those), user software reviews (copy-n-paste of people's banal blog rants about software they don't understand), and index of distributions (Oh, boy! because http://www.opensuse.org, etc... is so far to figure out), job postings (yea, right)... I'm glad somebody is really trying to be innovative; they didn't reinvent the wheel, instead they patched a flat tire. The [now] old Linux.com wasn't ground-breaking or even that insightful but at least there was half an attempt to produce new content. This "ideaforge" just looks like a would-be regurgitator.

Is it going to be the end of all things when every site is a "mash-up" [Buzzword! +100 points] mashing up every other site that is also a mash? Then in the year 2020 it will be so convenient to read all those great articles written during the golden age (1999-2006) of original content.

Am I being overly cynical? Yes. But I don't think I'm completely off-base either. This is an awesome domain: LINUX.COM! And this is the best anyone can come up with?

Poor sources

Posted Mar 4, 2009 14:03 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link]

No need to worry IMHO. Regurgitators have probably existed since the beginning of time, and they have caused limited damage over time. In fact certain scholastic regurgitators have even allowed us to keep large portions of the great classical philosophers.

The power of ignoring poor sources is frequently underrated. As long as we have sources for good, original content such as LWN all is well.

The Linux Foundation acquires Linux.com

Posted Mar 5, 2009 7:00 UTC (Thu) by dberkholz (guest, #23346) [Link]

Really it should just be a start page for people who want to learn more about Linux, or try it, and nothing more.