[plug] starting a linux mag?

[Harry McNally]

On Mon, 18 Nov 2002 10:41:03 +0800 "John Knight" <anarchist_tomato at hotmail.com> wrote:

> >I agree with you, dont get me wrong, but you're dealing with more than a 4
> >page fanzine here so you need to be *careful*. Acting on a gut feel doesnt
> >crack it in this realm. If you are *really* serious, you need to organise
> >some market research etc
> 
> No, I'm not super sure, it's going on the fact that people are buying UK and 
> US mags and *assuming* they'd prefer something local and cheaper (and poking 
> my tongue at Harry (just kidding)).

Tongue poking aside, I've been reading the thread(s) and I think Perth contributors could build a paper mag (magazine style but not too glossy). I just wouldn't let your graphics mate swamp the text with bulko images and massive white space. What a magazine does offer is quality diagrams for people like me that think in pictures. Diagrams are often not attempted or badly done on web information.

Given the quality of technical input on this list I see an application for people that want to progress with Linux where the article does introduce an aspect of Linux, PHP, perl, (I'm starting to talk about OSS more than just Linux perhaps). If the information has a bibliography (or link to an on-line bibliograpy) that is well researched and guides the reader into more depth if they wish to go further then this overcomes a barrier to getting started on a particular topic.

I find existing paper magazines have pretty crappy on-line resources and I wonder if they are peper publishers trying to make money from the on-line world. If you are so obsessed about forcing purchase of the magazine that there is no on-line follow-on then it really is a ripoff.

If the price was right (and subscriptions were also available for a "bread-and-butter" cashflow) then I'd be a purchaser and I'd read it off-line and followup the in depth resources on-line. I guess it's a model like C/C++UJ and Dr Dobbs which I've subscribed to since Calasthenics (sp?) (despite the fact that they seem to be getting thinner ..)

My summery: Quality information without wank and on-line resources that have been well researched as useful by experts.

There you go. More grist for the discussion mill.

cu
Harry

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