Is LWN the only professional media organization that covers this sort of thing? It seems like core, important news relevant to a large number of well heeled professionals, it's a little wild there's so little competition.
Is LWN the only professional media organization that covers this sort of thing? It seems like core, important news relevant to a large number of well heeled professionals, it's a little wild there's so little competition.
Most professional media organizations, including tech focused media, don't have a writer that remotely understands what's going on here.
I know Ars Technica has a guy who can go deep into how a security attack works. That's the only one I am aware of from a well-known publication. Even so, if you look at the comment section, most people have no clue about technical details and are just talking about the story.
Also bear in mind -- media in general is not a good industry to be in. Making money out of writing news articles is getting increasingly difficult. Most articles try to optimize for reach and clicks. Something like this one is not going to attract a lot of readers. I have no idea how LWN can be sustainable, but I can assure you that it's the exception, not the norm.
Other than LWN, your best bet is reading this from someone's blog, who spends hours writing about it, trying to explain it in an understandable way and avoid mistakes, expecting almost nothing in return, just as a hobby.
Your next best bet is reading someone's 12 disjointed tweets, possibly riddled with errors.
That's just the world we are living in.
> I have no idea how LWN can be sustainable, ...
Speculation: LWN is sustainable because there are enough people out there who recognize the value of such a source of information and are willing to pay for a subscription.
>... but I can assure you that it's the exception, not the norm.
Anecdata: I credit a good portion of my success to knowledge and insight I've gained from lwn articles.
If you're in a position to do so, I always recommend getting a paid membership, particularly if you've found their articles helpful to your tech journey.
(i am not affiliated with LWN, just a happy subscriber)
> I have no idea how LWN can be sustainable
Speculation: it’s because Linux (the kernel) is a large centralised project, so there’s a critical mass of people willing to pay for Linux Weekly News.
From there the proven quality allowed the publication to cover other OSS projects. I suspect that without Linux LWN would not be sustainable.
Given that even LWN, with its consistently high-quality reporting, is struggling to make it, would there be room for a second one?
Probably not, which is sad.