Editor's Note: Well It's Our Birthday Too--Yeah

Seven lucky years.

Exactly seven years ago, this very day, the first post for Linux Today graced the Internet. And now, despite obstacles and our own stumbles, we are still here, the strongest Linux news site in the world.

If that is read with a certain amount of pride, then today, on this day, I ask to be forgiven, especially since the pride is not just for me. Managing a news and digest site that runs 24 hours, seven days a week, with nearly half a million page views a day, can sometimes be daunting. But I have not done it alone.

There are many editors who have worked on Linux Today since 1998. Together, they have posted 62,244 stories here. All but me have gone on to other things: some here at Jupitermedia, others on their own paths and projects. Their relationships with LT and myself vary wildly, but I submit this now, on the record: each and every one of them has been an instrumental part in getting Linux Today where it is today, and for that, they have my sincerest thanks and appreciation.

And, as I tell anyone who asks, the reason this site keeps going is not the ads, or the news... it is the readers.

Readers who contribute stories on a daily basis. Readers who respond to articles in the talkbacks. Readers who send me e-mails asking why I ran this story instead of that one or that one of our links has malfunctioned. Positive and negative, it's all the same. It is the readers that have the true influence on what stories get posted and what stories get followed. Maybe that's not the best journalism, but I think it's the best way to run a Web site.

The amount of sheer content out on the Web makes running Linux Today at once simple and difficult. Simple because it is ridiculously easy to find articles related to Linux, free software, or open source software. Difficult because it's hard to find the good ones that say something new. So it helps, always, to have reader input on content. That way Linux Today isn't about one editor's viewpoint.

What makes this birthday milestone that much more appealing is that I know full well that readers have choices in where they get their news and information from. Given the gamut of sites to obtain Linux news, I consider us that much more fortunate that you have all still continued to visit Linux Today.

As I usually do on these milestones, I leave you with a list of the Top 25 Linux Today stories to date, and my fondest hope that we will see the next seven years together.

Peace,
Brian Proffitt
Managing Editor
Linux Today

1. 166074 reads: (162 talkbacks): Linus Torvalds: And oh, btw..2.4.0 is out (marty)
2. 132470 reads: (156 talkbacks): Joe Pranevich -- Wonderful World of Linux 2.4 (Quite Nearly There Edition) (dave)
3. 122130 reads: (27 talkbacks): Joe Pranevich: Wonderful World of Linux 2.4 (marty)
4. 111427 reads: (286 talkbacks): UPDATED: Richard Stallman -- Boycott Amazon! (dwj)
5. 106134 reads: (173 talkbacks): Red Hat: ext3 information (mhall)
6. 101246 reads: (144 talkbacks): Spec.org: Second Quarter 2000 SPECweb99 Results [Linux beats Windows 2000 in benchmark] (marty)
7. 96203 reads: (49 talkbacks): Bruce Perens: What's Going On About Open-Sourcing the OpenMail Program (mhall)
8. 92642 reads: (99 talkbacks): UPDATED: Wonderful World of Linux 2.4 - Final Candidate #2 - 4/01/00 (aka the "April Fool Update" Edition) (dwj)
9. 89839 reads: (197 talkbacks): Stallman on Qt, the GPL, KDE, and GNOME (kreichard)
10. 85822 reads: (286 talkbacks): The Wonderful World of Linux 2.2 -- 'revised millennium penguin' version (dwj)
11. 83590 reads: (297 talkbacks): Guest Column: Will Open Source Lose the Battle for the Web? (mhall)
12. 80300 reads: (13 talkbacks): Community: MobiliX.org Is Now TuxMobil.org (bproffitt)
13. 77396 reads: (85 talkbacks): Community: SCO Use of Samba Code Under the GPL (bproffitt)
14. 74495 reads: (79 talkbacks): Eric S. Raymond: Beware the Microsoft shell game (mhall)
15. 70790 reads: (86 talkbacks): Ending Microsoft FUD: An Interview with Peruvian Congressman Villanueva (bproffitt)
16. 67723 reads: (80 talkbacks): Response to SCO's Open Letter (bproffitt)
17. 67302 reads: (73 talkbacks): How to Build Your Own 1U Rack Mount Server and Save a Bundle (dwj)
18. 61530 reads: (98 talkbacks): GNU.org.pe: Peruvian Congressman's Open Letter to Microsoft (bproffitt)
19. 61181 reads: (81 talkbacks): UPDATED: Richard Stallman -- Why We Must Fight UCITA (dwj)
20. 58334 reads: (109 talkbacks): We Won: MS targets Linux in German advertising (john)
21. 56180 reads: (28 talkbacks): CIN: Linux TCO: Less Than Half The Cost of Windows (bproffitt)
22. 54357 reads: (110 talkbacks): Editor's Note: Blocked Sites and Fair Use (bproffitt)
23. 54149 reads: (86 talkbacks): What's in a Name? Richard Stallman on Linux vs. GNU/Linux (kreichard)
24. 53768 reads: (108 talkbacks): Update: LinuxWorld Expo: Guess Who's Coming to Exhibit? (bproffitt)
25. 53496 reads: (73 talkbacks): Richard Stallman -- On "Free Hardware" (dwj)