A friend the other day called Linux Journal "the journal of record for the open source community." I think that’s a good description of what we've been for twenty-three years, because one sign of our "of record" status is how many people have told us that they have a collection of LJ editions going back many years—even to well before open source was born as a thing 1998 (in part with our help).
So I asked myself, What other magazines do people tend to keep: ones might be models for Linux Journal as it grows into something much bigger in the world?
Two quickly came to mind: National Geographic and The New Yorker.
National Geographic is about more than geography. It’s about photography, adventure, science, culture, space, history, war and more. The New Yorker starts with the ideals and ironies of urban life in America’s greatest city, but spreads to every other topic fancied by its stable of first-rank writers. Which could be anything. (Consider the vast oeuvre of John McPhee, the best nonfiction writer who ever walked the earth. All his books began as New Yorker essays.)
So I've decided that Linux Journal should be to Linux what National Geographic is to geography and The New Yorker is to New York. Meaning about much more than the title alone suggests.
That “much more” isn't everything. But it is technology, which is close enough.
It’s not a stretch to say that Linux as a technology is so important, so ubiquitous and so principled that it serves as an ideal place to stand while talking about the rest of technology and what it does—and can do—in the world.
The operative word in that last sentence is principled. In more than two decades covering Linux, nothing has been more clear to me than the principled approach kernel developers, from Linus on down, take to working on what has become the world’s most essential operating system. What’s principled in kernel space should inform as well as support the user space we call the world of technology.
So that’s the plan: to remain the journal of record for Linux, free software and open source, and also a source of principled perspectives and urgings on other technical subjects, issued by a stable of great writers. Together we'll work to make Linux Journal the most essential journal on technology, standing on its most essential ground: Linux and the network it was born on.
We'll start with the great writers we have—and veterans returning to our fold. We'll add more as we grow upward and outward in the topics we cover. If you'd like to join us or help in any way, write us at [email protected].