[NTLUG:Discuss] What's happened to Linux Magazine?

[Wrenn, Bobby J.]

Where can I find a copy of this issue. I'd love to see what M$ had to say in
a Linux mag.

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Bickel [mailto:eusmb at exu.ericsson.se]
Sent: Friday, September 14, 2001 2:07 PM
To: discuss at ntlug.org
Subject: Re: [NTLUG:Discuss] What's happened to Linux Magazine?



> From discuss-admin at ntlug.org Fri Sep 14 11:40 CDT 2001
> From: Steve <steve at cyberianhamster.com>
> To: discuss at ntlug.org
> Subject: Re: [NTLUG:Discuss] What's happened to Linux Magazine?
> List-Archive: <http://www.ntlug.org/pipermail/discuss/>
> Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 09:35:52 -0500
> 
> 
> Mark Bickel wrote:
> 
> > I realize that some people may see their decision to run the ad as a
betrayal
> > of "the cause", but I view that reaction as being more than a bit
absurd.
> > The reality is that due to the current economic downturn, advertising
revenue
> > in tech pubs is way down from what it has been. This unfortunate
financial 
> > reality threatens the continued existance of many fine tech
publications. 
> 
> 
> In a lot of ways, I agree. You do what you have to do to survive. People 
> have jobs, the people working there probably believe in Linux, and so 
> on. Being totally "pure" (whatever that means) takes a back seat to the 
> real world. However, in the real world, it's your end customers who 
> count. If not enough of them are happy, you have no business anyway.
> 
> Although it's true that Microsoft ads in a Linux magazine probably have 
> no real benefit to Microsoft and they do help pay for the magazine, 
> there is still a certain bit of irritation at seeing this kind of thing 
> on the reader side.
> 
> I doubt that if half of the ads in the magazine were Microsoft-based 
> that many readers would just snicker about how stupid Microsoft was and 
> thank them for the subsidy. They'd probably be rather annoyed. 
<snip>
> I think the problem was that Microsoft ads don't provide any of these 
> functions for the reader. 
<snip>
> If your readers' first impression will be "This 
> shouldn't be here; why is this here?" on a process that was before 
> pretty automatic, that's probably bad for the mag.

All good points I agree with you on. If Linux Mag increases the number of
ads for things which are clearly anti-Linux/Unix in nature (like ads for
software that promise to make it easy to port all your "legacy" Unix 
applications to Windoze) they will definitely have crossed my personal
annoyance threshold to the point I would probably not renew my subsription.

When I saw the 2-page glossy "fluff" microsoft ad my immediate reaction was
amusement rather than anger. If the content or amount of the ads were taken
to a higher level (more M$ BS & FUD) my reaction might be a bit less benign.

Cheers,
Mark.Bickel at ericsson.com

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