Hi Everyone !
A little more than half a year has passed since my last posting
of this kind so I figured it is kind of time for a short
introduction into the “Brave GNU World” again and I will give a
short resumee.
The “Brave GNU World” (http://www.gnu.org/brave-gnu-world/
) is the monthly GNU forum and its topics range from features about
new or upgraded software to philosphic and legal questions.
Every author of a free project (this means everything covered by
the GPL or LGPL plus other free licenses), be it a program or some
piece of documentation, can get a feature in the Brave GNU World,
you only need to send mail to with a description of your project.
Pretty much anything that gets posted to the announcement
mailinglists or newsgroups could also get sent to . Of course there
is only limited space in a monthly column, so only under the most
extreme circumstances something would be featured more than once a
year.
The perfect time to get a feature on the column would probably
be when your project has made a major step (its up to you what a
major step is) because this will usually make for a much more
interesting feature. This is not mandatory, though.
Either way: The column offers the possibility to introduce your
project to a rather big audience in a good way.
How big exactly is the audience? This brings me to the resumee
part…
The column started as a bilingual project (English and German)
that was printed in Germany biggest GNU/Linux magazine, the
“Linux-Magazin”. Since then I have received a lot of positive
feedback and many people have volunteered to participate in it.
By now there are about 30-40 people more or less active in the
creation of the column – some are translators but the biggest chunk
are proofreaders who give me valuable positive input. Without them
I would not have been able to keep it up the way it is now – thanks
a lot!
Due to this effort the column is available in English, German,
French, Spanish and Japanese now – which means it covers a lot of
the world population (Chinese may be missing). It is printed every
month in the German “Linux-Magazin” which is _the_ GNU/Linux
magazine in Germany (they also organize things like the 520-node
GNU/Linux cluster in 1998) and in a French GNU/Linux magazine.
There may be more that I do not know of since reprinting is legal
without any restrictions.
How many people read the web version is hard to guess –
especially since the column is mirrored in full text on the
Linux-Magazin webserver, the Linux Weekly News and all the GNU
mirrors (doh!). The announcement mailinglist for the Brave GNU
World does hold some hundred people but some of them are
redistributors like LWN – so there is probably no way of finding
out the exact number of readers.
But at least part of the impact can be estimated: The fourth
issue of the column contained a feature about “Aegis”, a rather
special project for sourcecode/project management and the author
Peter Miller sent email that he received 2000 hits above usual
after the column came out and he holds the Brave GNU World
reponsible for all of them.
Another thing that came out of the column was the “We run GNU”
Initative (http://www.gnu.org/brave-gnu-world/rungnu/
) which resulted in some very nice motives and some interesting
email conversations.
Anyway: If you would like to raise your (and/or your projects)
profile, see some questions answered about the GNU Project / Free
Software or are looking for people to help you with a special
project, sending a mail to should become your first instinctive
reaction. 🙂
Regards,
Georg
—
Georg C. F. Greve greve@gnu.org
“Brave GNU World”, the monthly GNU forum
in English, German, French, Spanish and Japanese.
Check it out at http://www.gnu.org/brave-gnu-world/