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Note that LWN is an excellent weekly Linux publication that uses the subscription model. Articles are first only visible to subscribers, and then after a week t

Note that LWN is an excellent weekly Linux publication that uses the subscription model. Articles are first only visible to subscribers, and then after a week to the the general public. As a sort of gesture to the community, they added a "Send a free link" option that allows readers to send an article to a friend or colleague before this one-week period ends. This feature was really a nice gesture towards the LWN community. Clearly this feature now abused to send an article to a website with a large readership (since it is still in the one week subscriber-only period), which is really sad, given that LWN always had to put a lot of effort into generating enough income to compensate their authors. So, if you like the depth and quality of the article, please consider becoming a subscriber. It's really affordable, and provides genuinely good Linux/Unix-related content. Note: I am not affiliated with LWN, just a happy subscriber, sad to see a nice feature misused.

valyala 15y ago
From 'Send a free link' page: "This feature is made available as a service to LWN subscribers, and in the hope that they will use it to spread the word about their favorite LWN articles." I spread the word about my favorite article in the hope this will attract new subscribers to LWN.net .
- danieldk 15y ago
  Why not wait a week until it is generally available? If a small percentage of LWN subscribers would post their favorite articles to well-read sites, it would quickly defeat the incentive to subscribe to LWN. Anyway, the main point is: LWN is great, if you like it, consider joining ;).
rwmj 15y ago
I'm also an LWN subscriber (via my company), but I really don't think this is an abuse. It's great to see LWN and LWN articles getting occasional attention here.
ekidd 15y ago
Here's what the LWN FAQ has to say about subscriber links: http://lwn.net/op/FAQ.lwn#slinks http://lwn.net/op/FAQ.lwn#slinks Where is it appropriate to post a subscriber link? Almost anywhere. Private mail, messages to project mailing lists, and blog entries are all appropriate. As long as people do not use subscriber links as a way to defeat our attempts to gain subscribers, we are happy to see them shared. In the past, corbet has said that posting the occasional link to Hacker News is acceptable: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1966033 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1966033 As long as the posting of subscriber links in places like this is occasional, I believe it serves as good marketing for LWN - indeed, every now and then, I even do it myself. Personally, I get lots of mileage out of my LWN subscription-they do great reporting, and they try very hard to avoid sensationalism. If you work with Linux professionally, and you like Hacker News, you'll probably appreciate LWN.
FooBarWidget 15y ago
Yes LWN is an excellent publication. I've been reading their articles for years and I've recently become a subscriber.

valyala 15y ago

From 'Send a free link' page: "This feature is made available as a service to LWN subscribers, and in the hope that they will use it to spread the word about their favorite LWN articles." I spread the word about my favorite article in the hope this will attract new subscribers to LWN.net .

danieldk 15y ago
Why not wait a week until it is generally available? If a small percentage of LWN subscribers would post their favorite articles to well-read sites, it would quickly defeat the incentive to subscribe to LWN. Anyway, the main point is: LWN is great, if you like it, consider joining ;).

rwmj 15y ago

I'm also an LWN subscriber (via my company), but I really don't think this is an abuse. It's great to see LWN and LWN articles getting occasional attention here.

ekidd 15y ago

Here's what the LWN FAQ has to say about subscriber links: http://lwn.net/op/FAQ.lwn#slinks http://lwn.net/op/FAQ.lwn#slinks Where is it appropriate to post a subscriber link? Almost anywhere. Private mail, messages to project mailing lists, and blog entries are all appropriate. As long as people do not use subscriber links as a way to defeat our attempts to gain subscribers, we are happy to see them shared. In the past, corbet has said that posting the occasional link to Hacker News is acceptable: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1966033 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1966033 As long as the posting of subscriber links in places like this is occasional, I believe it serves as good marketing for LWN - indeed, every now and then, I even do it myself. Personally, I get lots of mileage out of my LWN subscription-they do great reporting, and they try very hard to avoid sensationalism. If you work with Linux professionally, and you like Hacker News, you'll probably appreciate LWN.

FooBarWidget 15y ago

Yes LWN is an excellent publication. I've been reading their articles for years and I've recently become a subscriber.