Linux Voice Passes Its Crowdfunding Target

super_rancid writes "The team that quit Linux Format magazine to launch a competitor that pledges 50% of profits back to the Free Software community, plus the release of all its content as CC-BY-SA after nine months, have hit their ambitious £90,000 Indiegogo crowdfunding target. The campaign now includes endorsements from Karen Sandler, Executive Director of the Gnome Foundation, Eben Upton, Founder of the Raspberry Pi and Simon Phipps, President of the OSI, with the first issue promised for February 2014."

Re:There is a linux magazine?

[TheSeatOfMyPants]

Believe it or not, there's still hobby-specific magazines of all kinds... There's 3-4 general Linux pubs, a couple devoted to distros or environments, and then in the general tech-geek category, 2600: Hacker Quarterly, Make, Maximum PC and a bunch focused on other hardware/OSplatforms. That's not even taking the magazines focused on general science, specific scientific fields, weird shit like Mental Floss, or non-STEM topics.

If someone can use Linux, they presumably can read. They might be, as Iam, too poor to pay the high cost of most (or all) Linux magazines (they're high in the US, at least) Personally, I always buy 2600, plus sometimes Writer's Digest, Renaissance Faires & Culture or something else that catches my eye. I was quite excited to score a bunch of old 2600 back issues last year at a garage sale, too. :)

The reason why someone with Internet access would read a periodical in any form is that the writing is usually of much higher quality, which means that the information is presented more coherently & concisely, letting us learn more about the subject (or at a more in-depth level)with less effort than we would from most online publications. Many of the popular web-only publications -- Salon, Slate, HuffPo, TechCrunch, TechDirt -- are like that, managing to turn even important subjects into mental fluff that probably won't stick in our minds any longer than it takes for us to comment. (I say "many" because I know of a very few sites like Ars Technica that soar above the rest.)

As for why anyone would buy them on paper, there's a number of reasons. One is that we can then read with full-color illustrations without having to use a backlit screen, which is great for problems like temporary light-sensitivity (e.g. due to a migraine) and chronic insomnia. Another is that many people still find it much more physically relaxing to read on paper, and/or find that they're mentally sharper after a long session of paper-reading than they are if they were reading... There's also that while tablets (for those that can afford them) have gotten much better at taking & referring back to interline/margin notes, many people still don't find it as convenient or intuitive to flip back through the device as with a paper copy or to refer to it when working.

Re:Magazines in 2013?

[nukem996]

If you RTFA you'd see that this is an on-line publication in which you can choose to get a print copy. They promise to release their content 9 months after the print/premium user copies go out under the CC. They're also promising to donate part of their profits to open source projects.