[olug] Fwd: IMPORTANT NOTICE FROM LINUX JOURNAL, LLC.

[Dan Linder]

Well, this sucks ...again...

DanL

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Linux Journal <subs at linuxjournal.com>
Date: Wed, Aug 7, 2019 at 8:44 PM
Subject: IMPORTANT NOTICE FROM LINUX JOURNAL, LLC.
To: DAN at LINDER.ORG <DAN at linder.org>


The Awkward Goodbye
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*IMPORTANT NOTICE FROM LINUX JOURNAL, LLC:*

*On August 7, 2019 Linux Journal shut its doors for good. All staff were
laid off and the company is left with no operating funds to continue in any
capacity. The web site will continue to stay up for the next few weeks,
hopefully longer for archival purposes if we can make it happen.*

*–Linux Journal, LLC*

* ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*

*Final Letter from the Editor: The Awkward Goodbye*

by Kyle Rankin

Have you ever met up with a friend at a restaurant for dinner, then after
dinner you both step out to the street and say a proper goodbye, only when
you leave, you find out that you both are walking in the same direction? So
now, you get to walk together awkwardly until the true point where you
part, and then you have another, second goodbye, that's much more awkward.

That's basically this post.

So, it was almost two years ago that I first said goodbye to *Linux Journal*
and the *Linux Journal* community in my post "So Long and Thanks for All
the Bash <https://linuxjournal.cmail19.com/t/j-l-mhjkdyd-jrhdlhhdq-r/>".
That post was a proper goodbye. For starters, it had a catchy title with a
pun. The post itself had all the elements of a proper goodbye: part
retrospective, part "Thank You" to the *Linux Journal* team and the
community, and OK, yes, it was also part rant. I recommend you read (or
re-read) that post, because it captures my feelings about losing *Linux
Journal* way better than I can muster here on our awkward second goodbye.

Of course, not long after I wrote that post, we found out that *Linux
Journal* wasn't dead after all! We all actually had more time together and
got to work fixing everything that had caused us to die in the first place.
A lot of our analysis of what went wrong and what we
intended to change was captured in my article "What *Linux Journal's*
Resurrection Taught Me about the FOSS Community
<https://linuxjournal.cmail19.com/t/j-l-mhjkdyd-jrhdlhhdq-y/>" that we
posted in our 25th anniversary issue.

So we set to work and things were starting to look very promising. One of
the changes I was particularly excited about was our expanded Deep Dive
section in each issue. This "long-form journalism" approach to technical
writing was something pretty special in the technical world and coming from
someone who wrote a few Deep Dives of his own, there was something very
freeing in knowing you could truly give a topic justice without artificial
constraints on page length. You, the readers, and also new writers
responded, and you could feel the new life and new energy in each issue.
After dying and being revived, it was finally starting to look like some
day soon we would be able to walk on our own.

Unfortunately, we didn't get healthy enough fast enough, and when we found
out we needed to walk on our own strength, we simply couldn't. So here we
are giving our second, much more awkward, goodbye. What happens now? We
gave each other a proper hug during the first goodbye, do we hug again this
time? Do we do the hand-shake-that-turns-into-a-single-arm-hug thing? Do we
just sort of wave and smile?

It wouldn't be right to say goodbye without acknowledging the wonderful *Linux
Journal* community we have been blessed with who have stuck with us
throughout the years and encouraged so much during our first goodbye. To
quote from my own recounting of that time:

Ultimately, we couldn't keep the lights on. *Linux Journal* announced that
it was shutting down on December 1, 2017. I followed up that announcement
with an emotional farewell of my own. If you read that farewell, you'll see
that somewhere in the middle it changed from a memoir into a manifesto. My
sadness at seeing something I had worked on for ten years going away was
replaced by anger that the Linux community had seemed to lose its way. I
lost my way. I took Linux and FOSS for granted. It became clearer than ever
to me that while Linux and FOSS had won the battle over the tech giants a
decade before, new ones had taken their place in the meantime, and we were
letting them win. Although I had written and spoken about Linux and FOSS
for years, and used it personally and professionally, I felt like I hadn't
done enough to support this thing I cared about so much. The death of *Linux
Journal* was a major factor in my decision to put my money where my mouth
was, quit my job, and join Purism so I could work full-time helping to
forward this cause.

So yeah, I took the news pretty hard. We all took the news pretty hard, but
where I had just lost a freelance writing gig, all of the core *Linux
Journal* team had just lost their full-time jobs. It was a difficult time,
yet we also were flooded with so much support from you, our readers. Some
people contacted us just to tell us how much they loved the magazine and
how sorry they were to see it go. Others offered to pay more for their
subscriptions if that would somehow help. Others still contacted us to see
if they could develop a fundraising program to keep the magazine alive. I
can't stress how much this incredible outpouring of support helped all of
us during this difficult time. Thank you.

So yes, thank you for sticking by us. We truly did everything we could to
make this a success, and I'm so sorry it didn't work out. On a personal
note, thank you to the rest of the *Linux Journal* team. Not being able to
work with all of you and chat with you is going
to be the hardest part of all of this by far.

If you want to keep in touch, you can find me at
https://social.librem.one/@kyle on Mastodon and
https://twitter.com/@kylerankin
on Twitter.

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