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Welcome to Linux Journal 2.0
- sgt 9y agoSaved by the readers. This is great news. Maybe they should also find additional funding via something like Patreon or even a Kickstarter campaign?
- proginthebox 9y agoIts a subscription magazine. So, Patreon will be useful for people who do not really want to read the magazine but donate the money anyway. Not sure how that would work.
- michaelmcmillan 9y agoIt would probably work the same way it got saved: Supporting great work is a good in and of itself.
- ChickeNES 9y agoWhy not offer a digital edition through Patreon?
- Xylakant 9y agoWhy not offer a digital edition as subscription?
- syshum 9y agoThe appeal of patreon for many is the fact they do not have to manage their support/subscriptions at multiple locations, or have to give out their payment info to multiple sites You sign up for single site and can support 100's of people and get rewards like a digital subscription. You would be surprised how much more donations can pick up if you eliminate even one form field let alone the entire form. People are lazy, they are even more lazy when they are giving money, the easier you make it the better
- w0m 9y agoIf they are a subscription service anyway; what would the value be?
- pfranz 9y agoI can only speak for myself. I have no idea what would make a sustainable business model. A few years ago I had a sustaining membership to a very popular public radio program. I dunno if it was a dark pattern, an oversight when overhauling their webpage, or what, but when I had to update my credit card number because it changed and I could not figure out how. None of the email contacts got any response. I eventually cancelled the old number and I've been hesitant of reoccurring transactions since. Conversely, I would use PayPal to manage other reoccurring donations. I've adjusted the amount, updated my credit card, and canceled without issue. I was never a fan of PayPal and closed my account a few years ago, and this activity seems to have migrated to Patreon. The web is weird and surprisingly still lagging cash and brick & mortar in many areas. People are soured to the experience of buying music and merchandise from a variety of sources and have been funneled to specific retailers like iTunes and Amazon.
- syshum 9y agoValue to who? I already laid out the value to the Subscriber was I unclear? It is more convenient for the individual subscriber to have 1 Patreon account to support many people, than for them to have many many accounts with many individuals sites. Where they have to manage their CC info, update expiration dates, etc Even with something like PayPal ask anyone that has ever done Reoccurring translations on PayPal and they will tell you what a nightmare it is to get people to update their CC Info Any time you can lesson the pain it takes for someone to give you money the better
- w0m 9y agoI generally despise the concept of ~infinity recurring payments, I want giving someone money to be an active thought. >Any time you can lesson the pain it takes for someone to give you money the better I see Patreons base model as to get people to sign up and forget about it. Maybe I'm a bit cynical, but it's just.. ick.
- aw3c2 9y ago> Saved by the readers is actually "specifically, by the hackers who run Private Internet Access (PIA) VPN, a London Trust Media company" which does not sound like a sustaining solution and absolutely not like the community of readers.
- IgorPartola 9y agoIs it really that bad? A sustainable corporate sponsor is likely better than a fickle community. Think about how many corporations also sponsor or own weird side ventures that may or may not actually produce profit, but are there for prestige, status, or just good of the world. Check out http://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-the-michelin-guide-2014-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-the-michelin-guide...
- craftyguy 9y agoHow much will PIA influence Linux Journal now? I don't see having a single company responsible for the survival of a journalism outfit as a good thing at all. I hope I am wrong and we are not inundated with PIA spam.
- IgorPartola 9y agoIf we are, so be it. LJ was very much dying and would be dead in 2018. This way it gets another chance and if PIA doesn't fuck it up, gets to potentially thrive. If PIA does fuck it up, well, it was going to die this year anyways. We are no worse off, and potentially better off with this situation. I have no relationship with PIA. I have written two articles for LJ a few years ago, and they very much struggled to pay me afterwards.
- gonzo 9y agoI wrote three articles for LJ over the years and always took my fee in trade for an extended subscription.
- mmjaa 9y ago
- pjmlp 9y agoI was a Linux Journal subscriber during the mid-90's until around 2005. It was a great magazine and one of the few ones with good technical content related to UNIX like OSes. Lately there was little difference to the pile of Linux Something magazines that are still being printed, or blogs and technical journals scattered around the Web. So it remains to be seen if the 2.0 changes will be enough to save it. We already lost DDJ and The C/C++ Users Journal.
- boudewijnrempt 9y agoI started reading it... With issue 4 or so. It introduced me to Qt, which is why I have bread and a roof and so on right now. But around 2008 or so, it went so very, very boring and around that time, or a bit later, digital-only. I stopped reading it.
- vram22 9y ago>We already lost DDJ and The C/C++ Users Journal. And JDJ and Java Report (AFAIK, last saw them years ago - in print versions).
- mmjaa 9y agoBut! We have things like PoC||GTFO to keep us perfectly well entertained! /ddj waaa! :(
- r3bl 9y agoAs far as donations are concerned, there's not a company I'm more proud of being a paid user of than I am of being a PIA customer. Out of a sea of "private, no logs" VPN services, PIA donations to the projects that you might also be interested in makes them really stand out. That (together with Ubuntu support) made all the difference when I was pursing a VPN provider.
- stockground 9y agoOn the note of Ubuntu, PIA also sponsors Linux Mint (an Ubuntu derivative) and even has a tool in the distro's repository to generate OpenVPN config files easily.
- boudewijnrempt 9y agoAnd Krita, and Inkscape and Blender...
- craftyguy 9y agoAs long as you can ignore all of the tracking cookies set on their web page.
- bogomipz 9y ago>"Out of a sea of "private, no logs" VPN services, ..." Has this ever been verified in any way?
- jlgaddis 9y agoHonest question: Short of root-level access to the entirety of their infrastructure, how would you verify it? I work for an ISP and have toyed with the idea of offering a "private, no logs" VPN service. As someone running such a service, what would it take to convince you that I wasn't logging information that could be used to identify you? (Obviously, there would be logs of some stuff -- just not the kind of things that would allow you to be individually or personally identified.)
- 9y ago
- ktpsns 9y agoI love the idea to put an IRC chat below the page for more lively comments. Here, it seems to come next to Disqus comments but it could also be a replacement.
- buovjaga 9y agoI wish it would be replaced with https://kiwiirc.com/nextclient/ https://kiwiirc.com/nextclient/ as qwebirc is quite dated :)
- _sdegutis 9y agoI've toyed with putting WebSocket-based live chat boxes on pages with various types of more traditional dynamic content (like an imgur clone) because I don't think we've exhausted all the interesting ways that people can interact in real time on the internet, but in practice there's always the problem that there are a very dense super active times and then tons of large super dead times, and it gives way to a group of people with shared interest that wants to turn into a live community but just can't and after a few days of checking in often for other people, they just get back on with their lives and abandon the thing.
- ktpsns 9y agoI think that's the reason why blogs without comment function gain ground. On the one hand static blog generators are practical, but they also are a confession that not every blog has a lively community.
- NickHoff 9y agoProud to be a paid user of PIA. It's a privacy-protecting just-works VPN with plenty of endpoints, nice chrome plugin, and Android app that does what it says. Thanks for your support of Linux Journal.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- craftyguy 9y agoWhy does their web page heavily use services from Google, specifically for tracking users (e.g. google analytics)? That doesn't come across as "privacy-protecting" at all to me.
- of 9y agoI wanna go on a geek cruise!!
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- reuven 9y agoI'm a long time Linux Journal columnist, and I'm equal parts delighted and surprised by this news. Thanks to PIA and Carlie for the work that went into this deal.
- arca_vorago 9y agoDon't forget linux journal readers were flagged by the NSA for extra surveillance.
- sedachv 9y agoSource: https://www.techspot.com/news/57316-nsa-classifies-linux-journal-readers-tor-and-tails-linux-users-as-extremists.html https://www.techspot.com/news/57316-nsa-classifies-linux-jou...
- ausjke 9y agoi just spent some time on their irc, it really should create a quick forum to collect ideas from interested parties, proud to be a long time subscriber here but I have to admit I rarely read its PDFs these days, linux journal needs to reform itself to become something major.
- wildbill 9y agoI'm a long time LJ columnist too, and this news makes me all kinds of happy in my heart. There's a freenode IRC channel where there's bunch of chatter going on about the resurrection - #linuxjournal - feel free to jump in and chat with staff there!
- mindcrime 9y agoI've been reading LJ for a long time, although I was never a subscriber. I'm happy to hear this, and I'm going to sign up for a subscription or something shortly. But I am curious about something: what's different for LJ, versus the other Linux magazines I see on the news-stand at B&N, which seem to be doing OK? I'm thinking of Linux Format, Linux Pro, Admin, etc? They seem to show up regularly month after month, with bundled DVDs of new releases, etc. But LJ seemed to have disappeared from the magazine rack even before recent events. So what's the deal? Is it a distribution problem, or ???
- revelation 9y agoLinux Format is owned by Future plc, a publicly traded company with more than 200 magazines in their portfolio. Linux Pro is ultimately owned by Marquard Media Group AG, a large swiss media conglomerate. So a lot of those have parents with deeper pockets. Print distribution likely has high fixed costs that are not affordable to single magazine.
- fao_ 9y agoLinux Format actually had a mass walkout of their editing staff a year or two back, they started Linux Voice.
- 616c 9y agoHad no idea! Will take more stock of LV and research what happened there.
- _delirium 9y agoYou wouldn't have seen Linux Journal on newsstands in recent years because it discontinued the print edition and went online-only way back in 2011: http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/linux-journal-goes-100-digital http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/linux-journal-goes-100-d... Funnily enough, the article announcing that was subtitled "Introducing Linux Journal 2.0"... so this new one should be 3.0 really. :-)
- mintplant 9y agoWhere is Private Internet Access getting all this money from? They're taking over projects in the FOSS community left and right. It honestly makes me even more suspicious that they're a front/honeypot for someone who wants to keep tabs on 'hacker' types.
- mox1 9y agoI don't think they release any numbers, but they have to be one of the most popular VPN subscription services available.
- platinumrad 9y agoThey seem to be the choice of everyone I know who is privacy-conscious enough to use a paid VPN but doesn't care enough to shop around and do in-depth comparisons.
- mmjaa 9y agoWell then, lets hear it.. where do the hoipoilloi boil their fish?
- toyg 9y agoVPNs are minting it, mate. Ever since copyright maximalists successfully lobbied for widespread crackdowns across Europe, the market has boomed. Costs are very low and margins are almost up to you. I’m actually happy that, for once, money is going back to the critical projects that need it so much.
- tuxxy 9y agoI heard that the CEO was an early investor and holder in Bitcoin and Ethereum.
- nerflad 9y agoSpeaking of PIA, I've noticed I get a 403 from Hacker News if I try to connect from my usual endpoint. Does HN have a no-VPN policy? Or they just block abusive domains?