By Brian Proffitt
Managing Editor
The first story wasn’t even about Linux; it was about
the release of Apache 1.3.2. Dave Whitinger posted that story
in the early morning hours of September 28, 1998.
77,029 stories later, here we are. The most-widely read Linux
and open source news digest in the world. Just about 80,000
visitors stop by on a daily basis to catch up on events and news in
the Linux world, from all across the planet.
Whenever we hit this anniversary date, it is amazing to me how
much LT means to so many people. There are days when it seems
impossible to keep up with the feedback, good and bad.
It seems such a simple concept: gather a bunch of links together
that point to stories that interest Linux users and observers. Post
them at regular intervals throughout the day and night. Give people
a place to discuss their thoughts and reactions to these
stories.
And I should note something about those discussions: a lot of
credence is given to how foul-mouthed and uncouth the Linux
community is. I offer evidence that this is certainly not
universal: of the talkbacks I have moderated on LT in the year to
date, take a guess how many talkbacks have been deleted for
violating our language/flaming policy? 51. Out of 9,600 talkbacks
year-to-date.
51 talkbacks killed for being too rude. That’s 0.53%. And is
there some draconian enforcement we administer? No. All we did was
ask politely. Perhaps some pundits in the media might recall
respect as a way of engaging constructive dialog with the Linux
community. It works for LT.
As always, I cannot thank the editors who help me out on LT when
I need it: Carla Schroder, James Turner, and Rob Reilly. Rob and
James have moved on to other ventures (Rob works for a defense
contractor and James is ME over at ONLamp), and they will be
missed. Carla, I am happy to report, will be contributing even more
in the weeks ahead at our companion site LinuxPlanet.
There are people who should be thanked up in JupiterMedia land:
all the developers and techs who keep the servers and the code
running; Amy Newman, ME of ServerWatch and Enterprise Unix Roundup;
Michael Hall, former ME of LT and current ME of OpenNetworksToday
and EnterpriseNetworkingPlanet; and my supervisor Gus Venditto, who
has always given me free reign with making editorial decisions.
All of the past contributors and editors of LT deserve a huge
round of applause for getting us where we are today. They made this
site; I’m just the lucky SOB who gets the privilege to keep it
going.
For all of you who contribute story ideas, talkbacks, or just
read what’s on the site, thank you for keeping us around.
On to our first decade…
Peace,
Brian Proffitt