Please welcome Joe Brockmeier to LWN

[Posted February 7, 2024 by corbet]

At the beginning of November, we let it be known that we were looking to hire a writer/editor to augment the LWN team. In past attempts, we have found it difficult to attract writers who could produce the kind of content that LWN readers expect. This time around, as we have said before, was different; we had a number of candidates who could have filled the bill and were forced to make some difficult choices.

While "hire them all" was an attractive idea, it was not one that our budget would support. We did conclude, however, that we could stretch to a second hire. So we are pleased to announce that the opportunity to bring Joe Brockmeier on board was too good to pass up — so we didn't. You will start to see his work return to LWN within the next few days.

We say "return" because Joe has a long history with the Linux community, and with LWN in particular. Our archives include an extensive series of articles that he contributed between 2003 and 2011 while working as a freelance author and editor.

Joe has a long history of working with (and writing about) open source. He's a member of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) and has been involved in the Fedora Project, Apache CloudStack, and many other projects. He lives in North Carolina with his family and a menagerie of cats and dogs.

By bringing on Joe and Daroc Alden, we have firmed up the foundation on which LWN is built and opened opportunities for an even better LWN in the future. As always, the biggest thanks are to you, LWN's subscribers, who have made LWN possible for all these years.

Please welcome Joe Brockmeier to LWN

Posted Feb 7, 2024 20:20 UTC (Wed) by amacater (subscriber, #790) [Link]

Welcome back to Zonker . At this rate, LWN will become one of the last sites on the AI dominated 'Net with meaningful content edited by knowledgeable humans aiming to increase the knowledge of the subscribers by both caring about what they say and writing about it cluefully at all times.

Thanks to all at LWN for all the efforts.

Please welcome Joe Brockmeier to LWN

Posted Feb 7, 2024 20:32 UTC (Wed) by vbatts (subscriber, #152675) [Link]

congrats and welcome back

Please welcome Joe Brockmeier to LWN

Posted Feb 7, 2024 20:44 UTC (Wed) by ktkaffee (subscriber, #112877) [Link] (2 responses)

In such a bad time for journalism, I love seeing a place like this expand, even a little. Welcome (back).

It makes the subscription all the more worthwhile

Posted Feb 7, 2024 22:38 UTC (Wed) by jasonjgw (subscriber, #52080) [Link] (1 responses)

This is another example of why I keep renewing my subscription to support high-quality, technical content from expert contributors to the Linux community. I hope the subscription revenue keeps flowing in support of the newly appointed authors.

It makes the subscription all the more worthwhile

Posted Feb 11, 2024 5:34 UTC (Sun) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

"If it's free, you're the product".

News and media is where this sentence is the most true by very, very far.

It's not a secret at all; everyone knows it except conspirationists. Out of all the things with overwhelming evidence, "follow the money" is the one that would hurt their beliefs the most.

Please welcome Joe Brockmeier to LWN

Posted Feb 7, 2024 21:01 UTC (Wed) by ms-tg (subscriber, #89231) [Link] (17 responses)

I wonder whether the LWN team could expand beyond Linux some day. Such a valuable resource, but of course the danger of mission creep is real as well.

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Posted Feb 7, 2024 21:02 UTC (Wed) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (16 responses)

Out of curiosity...where would you like to see expand into?

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Posted Feb 7, 2024 21:13 UTC (Wed) by jbglaw (subscriber, #10406) [Link] (2 responses)

As I'm generally interested in portability, I'd be very much interested in operating systems like NetBSD (or some other BSD), or OpenIndiana.

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Posted Feb 8, 2024 13:05 UTC (Thu) by lproven (guest, #110432) [Link] (1 responses)

> I'd be very much interested in operating systems like NetBSD (or some other BSD), or OpenIndiana.

An excellent argument. I can't fault it. I support this proposal.

Even if one imposed some kind of scope restrictions, such as "only Unix-likes" and "only OSes implemented in C" and "only kernel and core functionality such as filesystems", that seems like a great idea to me.

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Posted Feb 8, 2024 15:51 UTC (Thu) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

Anything typically running a GNU-style userland?

(So that could include WSL, but not the W on its own :-)

Cheers,
Wol

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Posted Feb 7, 2024 21:46 UTC (Wed) by fwiesweg (guest, #116364) [Link] (3 responses)

Since your asking anyway, I might as well give it a shot even if might be a bit off-topic for LWN ;)

My personal favourite topic would be distributed, larger scale data systems, like replicated PostgreSQL, Kafka, ceph, Hadoop, ... They're quite interesting and have got really detailed documentation, but it's really hard to get the kind of reliable and independent, yet opinionated view required to make good technology choices. What's available is often too full of advocacy or too academic to be of much use.

Actually, interaction of these systems with the kernel might be interesting, too, since they've got quite specific usage patterns. So maybe not that off after all ;-)

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Posted Feb 8, 2024 13:07 UTC (Thu) by willy (subscriber, #9762) [Link] (2 responses)

Some of the best sessions we've had at LSFMM have involved Andres Freund as Postgres representative telling us what we can do better at. I've tried to repay the favour by showing up to Postgres conferences, and by all accounts, that was well received.

A long way of saying I agree that there can be significant worthwhile interactions between "Linux" (writ large as LWN has never had a pure kernel focus) and other projects. I'll never more than dabble in Python, but it's fascinating to read Jake's articles about its development.

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Posted Feb 8, 2024 17:44 UTC (Thu) by andresfreund (subscriber, #69562) [Link] (1 responses)

> Some of the best sessions we've had at LSFMM have involved Andres Freund as Postgres representative telling us what we can do better at.

I probably ought to find time & energy give a new talk like that, there's probably a fair number of issues that aren't seen as much by linux developers these days...

> I've tried to repay the favour by showing up to Postgres conferences, and by all accounts, that was well received.

I for one have appreciated you showing up at pgcon - it's one of the sad things about moving that conference to Vancouver this year. I assume that means you won't be there?

I haven't written python in anger for over a decade, but I still find the articles somewhat interesting, mainly because it's another big successful open source project, and we ought to learn from each other.

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Posted Feb 11, 2024 15:27 UTC (Sun) by willy (subscriber, #9762) [Link]

Alas, I cannot justify a five hour flight (each way) just to hang out with you guys, much as I enjoy it. And there's nothing else I can find to compel me to come to Vancouver that week (eg the marathon is the start of May, not the end).

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Posted Feb 7, 2024 22:06 UTC (Wed) by milesrout (subscriber, #126894) [Link] (8 responses)

I like the focus, personally. But if you were to expand, I would hope it would be along the same direction you already have. e.g. the various articles about Python are a good example of LWN covering a Linux-adjacent topic well.

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Posted Feb 7, 2024 22:42 UTC (Wed) by Sesse (subscriber, #53779) [Link] (7 responses)

The problem, of course, is that the farther away from the core you get, the larger the fraction will be for which it is irrelevant. (Since you bring up the Python coverage specifically: Is it by far the LWN coverage that I find the least useful, personally. There was a heated discussion on python-dev about feature X or syntax quibble Y, OK, let's move on. I'm sure it is highly interesting to some subset of LWN's readers, but I guess it illustrates my point.)

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Posted Feb 7, 2024 23:18 UTC (Wed) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (6 responses)

However, "emerge", the gentoo package management tool, is written in Python. So if you mean "LWN" in the vein of "Zack's Kernel News", yes Python is rather off topic.

But if you mean "Linux Weekly News" as in all the Linux distros, Python is actually seriously important.

Where do you draw the line?

Personally, I would be very happy with LWN focussing on Linux, but seeing their remit as FLOSS in general. Like I'm a database guy with interests in legal, compilers, what have you.

Employ people who are very FLOSS/Linux at core, but with eclectic interests elsewhere. And if you're not interested, just ignore it! Hell, I regularly buy linux magazines where the bulk of it is of no interest, but the bit that is, is well worth paying for. Why should LWN be any different?

Cheers,
Wol

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Posted Feb 8, 2024 4:55 UTC (Thu) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] (5 responses)

Python is absolutely part of core Linux infrastructure.

Julia (for example) is not but I am happy for the occasional Julia articles that appear here. Similarly for the software review articles (eg GNUcash even though I don't use it).

The L in LWN has always meant the entire ecosystem (even the occasional BSD news) not just the Linux kernel. I hope that continues and expands!

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Posted Feb 11, 2024 5:37 UTC (Sun) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (4 responses)

> Python is absolutely part of core Linux infrastructure.

Did you mean "GNU/Linux"? :-)

There is a serious question behind the joke: is this site "Linux (kernel) Weekly News" or "GNU Linux weekly news"? I don't know in theory but in practice it seems to be something like 80/20% (fine by me).

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Posted Feb 11, 2024 6:16 UTC (Sun) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] (2 responses)

Linux-based OS weekly news?

It is not true, arguably never was true, that a typical Linux OS is a Linux kernel running on top of a GNU operating system. Some (like Alpine Linux) don't even use glibc or gcc. And there's Android. Let's stop with the "GNU/Linux" thing please.

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Posted Feb 11, 2024 8:49 UTC (Sun) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

For me, there's two telling points.

RMS is determined to tack his GNU on to Linux, because Hurd never actually worked.

Linus didn't coin the name linux, and was surprised (and pleased?) when it happened.

Self-bestowed honours aren't worth the paper they're written on. That's why I would never call myself a guru (in any field). I may think I am, but until someone else recognises the fact, I'm not!

Cheers,
Wol

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Posted Feb 12, 2024 3:11 UTC (Mon) by milesrout (subscriber, #126894) [Link]

>It is not true, arguably never was true, that a typical Linux OS is a Linux kernel running on top of a GNU operating system.

That's why the term is useful: it means something, as opposed to something else. If every Linux system were a GNU/Linux system, then it wouldn't be a useful term. But today, most userspaces running on top of the Linux kernel are not GNU userspaces. That means that we need a term to distinguish Linux-based operating systems generally with those Linux-based desktop/server operating systems that are based on the GNU operating system design, even if they've had the major GNU components swapped out for clones.

Alpine, to be clear, is absolutely a GNU/Linux system. It might not use GNU components but that doesn't mean anything really. It follows the GNU operating system design to a tee, but with most of the GNU bits replaced by clones written by other people and available under permissive licenses. musl isn't just some libc, it's a (often bug-for-bug) clone of glibc. clang isn't just some C compiler, it's a gcc clone. It defines __GNUC__ and __GCC_* macros, and __gnu_linux__ and other macros like that. It copies almost all the GNU extensions to C, because it's trying to emulate gcc as closely as possible, so that you can run not just C software but GNU C software. If you set CC=clang it's meant to just work to compile software written specifically for gcc. The same is true for every one of these alternate non-copyleft-licensed alternatives to GNU software. They're clones of GNU software, often bug-for-bug compatible, and the overall OS design, filesystem layout, etc. is based on the GNU operating system design. Most of the software can be used on GNU systems perfectly fine. That's not true of BSD system software, which often needs to be basically rewritten to work on GNU systems, and vice versa.

Android isn't GNU/Linux because all it shares with GNU/Linux is the kernel. The userspace is a completely different design. If you compare GNU/Linux, Android, the BSD userspaces and the allegedly non-GNU desktop/server Linux userspaces like Alpine, you'll see the design of the first and fourth of those examples are almost identical while the second and third are very different designs, especially Android.

The GNU/Linux term is useful because it is more specific than Linux. It's in fact only useful *because* it doesn't mean the same thing as "Linux-based".

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Posted Feb 12, 2024 8:10 UTC (Mon) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

To be clear it was never my intention to start yet another GNU/Linux debate. I only meant "the kernel" versus "a complete OS".

Please welcome Joe Brockmeier to LWN

Posted Feb 7, 2024 23:11 UTC (Wed) by AdamW (subscriber, #48457) [Link]

Congrats Joe!

Please welcome Joe Brockmeier to LWN

Posted Feb 7, 2024 23:23 UTC (Wed) by yodermk (subscriber, #3803) [Link] (9 responses)

This is good to see. TBH I've had a little trouble justifying renewals at the current price point given what I do (DevOps Engineer) and current finances. I love our esteemed editor, but the focus has been a bit too much on kernel internals, and I'll never be a kernel developer. (Though I do love Rust, so I'm at least somewhat interested in how it will be used to develop the kernel.)

I am very interested in seeing Daroc's future articles on programming languages and Zonker has had some good stuff too. This should make LWN much more diverse again. It might be a bit till I can pull the trigger again but I think we'll get there!

If you can manage more articles on DevOps type things that would help, and like another comment I'm interested in large data systems.

Please welcome Joe Brockmeier to LWN

Posted Feb 8, 2024 8:49 UTC (Thu) by intelfx (subscriber, #130118) [Link]

As a counterpoint, I’m quite happy to see LWN pursuing and focusing on a more “closer to the metal” coverage.

There’s plenty of sources that cover large systems, operations and related happenings (if maybe not on the same level of quality), but LWN is unique in its scope and focus.

Please welcome Joe Brockmeier to LWN

Posted Feb 8, 2024 9:51 UTC (Thu) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (2 responses)

> This is good to see. TBH I've had a little trouble justifying renewals at the current price point given what I do (DevOps Engineer) and current finances. I love our esteemed editor, but the focus has been a bit too much on kernel internals, and I'll never be a kernel developer. (Though I do love Rust, so I'm at least somewhat interested in how it will be used to develop the kernel.)

I'd hate to see you downgrade and reduce LWN's incomes, but at the end of the day if you can't actually justify the cost, go for "Impoverished student" or whatever it is. I was on part time minimum wage for years, and it was all I could afford, but now things have perked up, I pay more because I can.

Jobwise, I don't even work in computing any more! Okay, my job is in large amount programming, but Excel VBA! I ask you! :-)

Nah, I'm twisting my job (in reality) back to Database Analyst/Programmer, but officially that role doesn't belong anywhere NEAR where I am! :-) We're currently running a big warehouse operation using a database built on Excel! Like Topsy, it "just growed", but every attempt to improve one thing just breaks something else :-(

Cheers,
Wol

Please welcome Joe Brockmeier to LWN

Posted Feb 8, 2024 16:04 UTC (Thu) by yodermk (subscriber, #3803) [Link] (1 responses)

Heh, thanks, but I'm not *that* poor -- just a lot of things going on that I don't yet know the full cost of, so need to figure out where we'll land over the next few months! :)

Please welcome Joe Brockmeier to LWN

Posted Feb 8, 2024 16:13 UTC (Thu) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

:-)

Cheers,
Wol

Please welcome Joe Brockmeier to LWN

Posted Feb 8, 2024 17:40 UTC (Thu) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (3 responses)

Note that in a lot of countries subscriptions to professional journals - which the LWN is - and associations (e.g. ACM) can be offset against your tax liability. Certainly the case in the UK and Ireland. Surely also in the USA.

Please welcome Joe Brockmeier to LWN

Posted Feb 8, 2024 17:43 UTC (Thu) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

Oh, and you might be able to persuade your employer to take out an institutional subscription with LWN. My previous Large-Tech corporate provided this.

Please welcome Joe Brockmeier to LWN

Posted Feb 9, 2024 19:35 UTC (Fri) by yodermk (subscriber, #3803) [Link] (1 responses)

That is an interesting point. I think that would certainly be the case if I were self-employed and use LWN to educate myself. But, working for someone else? *Maybe* that could work for someone who itemizes their deductions, but it seems a bit dubious, and in any case I haven't done that since the 2017 doubling of the standard deduction. :/ Does anyone else in the US deduct LWN subscriptions while not self-employed?

An employer subscription would be nice. Probably a longshot at best, but if there's an appropriate time to bring it up, I will.

Please welcome Joe Brockmeier to LWN

Posted Feb 12, 2024 10:40 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

In both the Ireland and the UK a PAYE employee can claim for tax credits for professional memberships and journal subscriptions. Check the appropriate Revenue website for your country, if you're in the Celtic Isles.

Please welcome Joe Brockmeier to LWN

Posted Feb 10, 2024 15:38 UTC (Sat) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

> (DevOps Engineer) and current finances. I love our esteemed editor, but the focus has been a bit too much on kernel internals, and I'll never be a kernel developer.

I'm somewhat overlapping with DevOps (little though I like the term), and have small kernel patches despite also never becoming a kernel developer, but I'd like to say that the low-level articles are helpful because I can apply the knowledge to problems I do have (e.g., pressure stall over load average, cgroup knob for OOM protection, etc.). Not 100%, but I don't think anyone else would subscribe to "only things mathstuf finds useful" as a publication.

Please welcome Joe Brockmeier to LWN

Posted Feb 8, 2024 0:49 UTC (Thu) by csamuel (✭ supporter ✭, #2624) [Link]

Great news, welcome back Joe!

Please welcome Joe Brockmeier to LWN

Posted Feb 8, 2024 1:20 UTC (Thu) by tdalman (guest, #41971) [Link]

Welcome back, Joe!

Please welcome Joe Brockmeier to LWN

Posted Feb 8, 2024 2:44 UTC (Thu) by passthejoe (guest, #156034) [Link]

I am looking forward to reading the work of both writers

Please welcome Joe Brockmeier to LWN

Posted Feb 8, 2024 15:01 UTC (Thu) by Herve5 (subscriber, #115399) [Link]

Very good news, specially the fact we were able to afford 'times two'!

Please welcome Joe Brockmeier to LWN

Posted Feb 8, 2024 15:21 UTC (Thu) by rikkiends (guest, #162247) [Link]

ahhh, I love this!! Congrats all around - a win for LWN, Joe, readers, and the community.

Please welcome Joe Brockmeier to LWN

Posted Feb 8, 2024 16:43 UTC (Thu) by mattdm (subscriber, #18) [Link]

Awesome! Good news all around!

Please welcome Joe Brockmeier to LWN

Posted Feb 8, 2024 19:15 UTC (Thu) by sjvn (guest, #19124) [Link]

A great site for a great writer who knows his Linux.

Please welcome Joe Brockmeier to LWN

Posted Feb 9, 2024 23:17 UTC (Fri) by rwky (subscriber, #119998) [Link]

Welcome Joe!

RSS curation

Posted Feb 11, 2024 14:26 UTC (Sun) by mtaht (subscriber, #11087) [Link] (4 responses)

I would enjoy an attempt or set of attempts at curated RSS feeds of good material from the linux worlds elsewhere, provided by lwn, and/or contributed by readers. Bring back the blogroll! Ignore the AIs, block PR-driven drivel like what we get from most of the former computer "magazines".

Chat again

Posted Feb 11, 2024 14:29 UTC (Sun) by mtaht (subscriber, #11087) [Link]

Linux Magazine used to keep an entertaining irc chat channel. I miss it. FOSStodon is too slow. I gave up on matrix recently and went to zulip.

https://chat.libreqos.io/join/fvu3cerayyaumo377xwvpev6/

Linux RSS curation: Try LXer.com

Posted Feb 13, 2024 3:28 UTC (Tue) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

LXer.com has a reasonable Linux RSS feed with a major distro desktop/server and laptop/embedded hardware coverage focus. I find it a broader-linux-world rounding-out balance to the more technical and kernel focused LWN.

While many of the covered articles are "advanced beginner" level "How to install software Y on distro Z" stuff I quickly next-thru, even scanning those headlines is useful from a "what's hot" perspective. But they also cover enough stuff like firefox/kde releases (firefox on the day it hits the mirrors, normally the day
/before/ official release, plus firefox-next discussion, kde I do live-git via the gentoo/kde overlay ebuilds so have normally seen it already, but sometimes I miss something and even when not tend to find a different perspective or use-case interesting) and new hardware (both laptops from tuxedo/star/system76 and embedded such as multi-input/output video systems for security/ad-play/mobile/robotic, plus wireless routers, etc). Plus the occasional "trenches-focused" (aka "geek-tabloid news focused") linux-related security, EC/US-legislation, etc, article from The Register or so.

They have on-lxer discussions and I believe feeds for them, but the feed I have subscribed is a redirect-to-original-article feed. (Unfortunately the initial to-be-redirected connection to lxer is http, which firefox rightly complains about (the first time in a session) as I have it set to https-only by default, but usually the redirected-to site supports https, so at least the after-redirect connection get that, even tho the initial to-be-redirected connection doesn't.)

RSS curation

Posted Feb 15, 2024 22:17 UTC (Thu) by rshepard (subscriber, #10787) [Link] (1 responses)

Speaking of RSS:
A few days ago (Feb 12), LWN's Comments RSS feed changed such that all comments are, now, authored by "LWN.comments" instead of the actual comment author. I, at least, see this change as a loss of important information as it is no longer possible to give "weight" to comments based on prior experience with a comment's author.

After twenty years of reading comments byway of the RSS feed, this is a sorely missed "feature" ... not a complaint, more of a lament ...

Comments

Posted Feb 15, 2024 22:56 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

There have been changes to the RSS feed - we moved forward to RSS 2.0, a mere 22 years after it was established. The behavior you describe is, to use a technical term, a bug. Next time, lament to us directly and maybe it'll get fixed sooner :)

Please welcome Joe Brockmeier to LWN

Posted Feb 19, 2024 11:04 UTC (Mon) by murukesh (subscriber, #97031) [Link] (3 responses)

Any chance we will see more episodes in the Red Hat and the Clone Wars series? It's been a few months since the next episode on Ubuntu was promised in https://dissociatedpress.net/2023/07/23/red-hat-and-the-c...

Please welcome Joe Brockmeier to LWN

Posted Feb 19, 2024 16:15 UTC (Mon) by jzb (editor, #7867) [Link] (2 responses)

Hey, somebody read those! I have that installment partly written but it's a lot to bite off and chew and then... well, life happened as it does from time to time. At some point I'll talk to Jake and Jon to see if they have any interest in continuing the series here or mind it continuing there. Thanks for asking!

Please welcome Joe Brockmeier to LWN

Posted Feb 19, 2024 16:56 UTC (Mon) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link] (1 responses)

You had more than one reader - I enjoyed the added context, and I've sent links to the articles to friends who wanted a good introduction to the whole topic without too much "good versus evil" editorializing. If you were to write more in the series, I'd love to read them!

Please welcome Joe Brockmeier to LWN

Posted Feb 19, 2024 18:07 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

ditto

Cheers,
Wol