I've sadly not kept up with Linux Journal, but for the stretch of a couple years when I was in grad school and during my first job it was immensely helpful. It used to be you could get buy the print copy in New York's Penn Station, and I would get it going back home on the train after an evening spent at the CS lab. LJ helped expand my awareness about Linux and the free software.
Congratulations, and thanks to putting together such a great resource!
Happy birthday! I wonder what the economics of a publication like this are. Are reader numbers and ad prices still good enough?
I guess we’ll never get back to the days of Amiga Format’s crazy high reader numbers but I’m hopeful that there’s room for a magazine resurgence.
Paying for content that doesn’t track you or have intrusive ads ... where you’re less likely to find content marketing ... really appeals to me. I greatly value my Economist subscription.
> I wonder what the economics of a publication like this are. Are reader numbers and ad prices still good enough?
They were in very bad shape just a little over a year ago. They had decided to cease publication, but got rescued by the parent company of Private Internet Access:
I subscribed to them since the mid 90s but stopped once they went digital only. Not sure how many they lost doing that but for me at least having it on paper was the one thing that made it valuable to me as a subscription. High quality articles on different subjects regarding linux have been available online for free for quite a while.
I stop subscribing for a couple of years, specially after focusing again on Windows. I decided to re-activate my subscription when they started to reach out to old subscribers trying to rescue the magazine.
>Our next big change came in 2011, when we moved to all-digital publishing, because newsstand bookstores were dying (goodbye Borders), and the cost of printing became impossibly high.
Gah. That brings back bad memories. When I moved to this area in 2011, there were five Borders within a 20 mile radius of me. They all closed within six months of my moving here. B&N and Books-a-Million are pale imitations.
In recent years, across Europe I have seen large bookshops, even the flagship stores of once-serious chains, become largely empty. Where once densely packed shelves lined the walls and formed aisles, now there are half-empty shelves along the walls with just a handful of books scattered on them. The space in between is dedicated almost entirely to what I would call hipster accoutrements: vinyl records, Moleskine notebooks, fancy teapots, Kikkerland products, etc. Personally, I don’t get how these shops stay profitable. They seem to be renting a huge amount of space, presumably expensive, and not actually using most of it.
In any event, going back to the topic here, those bookshops have often done away with magazines entirely. Thus, Linux Journal couldn’t have sold their mag in bookstores even when some bookstores are still around.
Flagship stores don't really make money. They're there as advertising that hopefully pays for itself. Making money in retail is determined by the efficiency of distribution and supply chain.
I had the pleasure of buying technical books at the original Borders in Ann Arbor before the store became a chain. It was an amazing place. RIP Borders.
Stumbling across the December '98 issue of Linux Journal in the Tower Records store across from the UT Austin campus was kind of a transformative moment for me. :) Resubscribed just for that sense of nostalgia alone.
And now, having looked through the online archives you get access to as a subscriber, I realize my memory was faulty. It was the November issue with Guido on the cover!
nostalgias in intense greybeard The other holy shit moment I had with linux was installing slackware from a pile of repurposed AOL floppies. Ah, good times...
Happy Birthday - Many fond memories of reading Linux Journal on holidays when I was younger (early 2000's) which was formative for my career (even if my family thought it was a bit strange at the time)
My career as a technical writer began 15 years ago with an article that I wrote for Linux Journal. I'm glad that they were able to work out their financial issues and find new sponsorship to sustain them.
I unsubscribed when the editor in chief was replaced in around 2000 (can't remember the exact year). It became more "political" and "business" and less "hacker"
I wish them all the best... Unfortunately I kept in a year after they stopped print publication. Though may give it another shot with my tablet at home.
Congratulations, and thanks to putting together such a great resource!