What does OSnews mean to you, and what do you think it should focus on? Articles?
Community?
Size?
Features?
Interactivity?
Customisation?
Quality?
Participation?
It's easy to complain, but it's harder to think about where you would steer the ship if you were in control. Which direction would you point the ship?
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Member since:
2005-06-29
Whoa. Sounds like Kroc got in charge.
Anyway, I'd focus on quality and unbiased news first. Less editorialisations. It's already pretty good but what ruins it is when somebody says "What this news story tells us is..." I can figure it out myself, thanks.
Otherwise it wouldn't hurt to find a niche and work in it, like stop publishing hardware news entirely for example... Because you either give the whole picture - publish every relevant story in that department, or not.
Member since:2005-11-10
No, I'm not in charge of anything--but I do care about OSnews and hate to see constant negative and off topic discussion about moderation.
It'd be more interesting to see what everybody upholds as personal standards of quality that they would like to see reflected through the site. 
Member since:
2005-06-29
Member since:2005-11-10
Member since:
2005-11-10
This is what I would do.
Define the nature of the site, and then focus on it. No longer be a general tech news site with an interest in OSes - be an OS site, and nothing but.
* Drop the common / popular news everybody else aready has.
* Drop any controversal news / flamebait / off-topic
* Build close and personal relationships with alternative OS makers and skunkwork projects
* Through these relationships, be the source of exclusive interviews and news for all alternative OSes.
* Provide greater means and encouragement for the community to contribute
* Hold regular writing competitions and themed cmmunity events
* If you must keep the popular/regular news - move *all* of it to page 2. Page 1 should be nothing but OSes / niceh / exclusive content
* Simplify, streamline the website
Member since:2006-07-30
And that'd give what, like one article per week?
Simplification has some appeal but the effort required to find one interesting article that's not on OSNews is probably 10-100 times higher than the effort of ignoring an article that doesn't sound interesting.
If you significantly change the focus of OSNews you're bound to lose a lot of users while you may or may not gain new users.
I don't really think OSNews needs to slim down because it's already a lot slimmer and more focused than most competing sites.
What keeps me here is the interesting news mix of
-Linux
-programming languages
-hardware reviews
Member since:2005-11-10
Then spin the mainstream news into a new site and keep that running. Being all things to all people is no fun.
The staff have repeated that OSnews is run as a part time project and the ad revenue is put into hosting costs. Of course, I can't speak for them, but a loss of users can't be a bad thing if you're not relying on them. Slimming the community down to those who care much more deeply about the subjects on hand can only be a good thing.
Digg has bought us nothing by utter crap news and utter crap comments.
And I don't agree that there are not interesting stories out there. There is so much going on in the hobbyist world, and I could write a few articles myself, and contribute links to the stuff I discover that most haven't seen or heard of.
--I do agree that programming language articles are great, that I would include.
Member since:2006-02-05
Fantastic ideas, I don't disagree with any of them.
* Drop any controversal news / flamebait / off-topic
I would add on drop any exposing of karma of any kind, including post level votes to take away gaming aspect that karma whores feed on.
* Through these relationships, be the source of exclusive interviews and news for all alternative OSes.
* Provide greater means and encouragement for the community to contribute
* Hold regular writing competitions and themed cmmunity events
Also, dramatically reduce the linux/windows/osx content. "Pulse audio now sucks slightly less" and "Windows 7 now uses teal windows by default" are just noise. The site has basically become Windows News/Linux News.
Jquery ftw. The profile menu and a few strategic xhrs are the only javascript on the site. imo www.stackoverflow.com is a great example of a site that dynamic and flashy in a good way.
Member since:
2006-09-25
I know Eugenia started OSnews but her recent posts are totally off-topic. If she no longer cares about OSs but video production, then she should start videography.com or something, and not spam OSnews.
To the contrary of what someone above says, I would like to see MORE editorial opinion and in depth look behind the news. For example, recently Genode OS framework X.Y was released. And that's it. But I would like to know what it is, and whether it matters at all (probably not), if yes, why and what is especially interesting about it. These kind of posts would of course take more time to write... which brings us to:
More editors. This would mean more time available to write per post = more in depth and better quality posts.
An OS knowledge base, or call it wiki if you will. People could add their definitions to it, but probably it shouldn't be open to everyone to edit. The advantage over Wikipedia would ideally be quality, conciseness, professionalism, etc...
Member since:
2005-07-01
Just looking at the front page, most of it's very much OS related. There's some hardware news, some legal news and one or two articles that are only tangentially related to OSs but what the heck? Better than monotonous distro releases.
If you don't like an item, don't read it and don't comment on it. Reward good behavior, ignore bad.
Member since:
2006-01-27
News. The focus should be on alternative operating systems - news, updates, and announcements that aren't centralized anywhere else. Some Lunux/Mac/Windows news is to be expected, especially major releases, but shouldn't be the focus; that stuff can be found anywhere.
Hardware reviews are OK sometimes, but should emphasize the OS-related aspects. Lose the hardware/appliance articles that are completely OT.
I did like the Page 2 idea. "Page 1" for OS-specific announcements and news; "Page 2" for other technology news, opinion essays, and stories.
The recent articles on vintage machines have been especially interesting, but have noticeably lacked information on the machines' operating systems, often not even a screenshot. Great filler material for Page 2...
More community interaction. Moderating was a PITA I realize, but the old forums were an incredible asset for alternative operating system authors, users, and hobbyists, an asset that hasn't been replicated anywhere since.
Member since:
2005-06-29
So the newest news item, about Linux being ported to the iPhone. And there we have Thom again with his annoying opinion on how you shouldn't be happy because Apple is not perfect. That's exactly the thing that annoys the HELL out of me! Nowhere did the dev team stated that they were annoyed by strict software policies or whatever. They just do it BECAUSE THEY LIKE HACKING STUFF! Moreover, just porting Linux won't exactly accomplish the task of showing Apple how they were wrong. But I won't go into that. We really really ought to take the bias and opinions out of news. Why don't editors just go to the comments and say what how they feel like THERE instead?
Member since:
2005-07-24
Do any major changes really need to be made? I can't really think of any changes to OSNews itself that would excite me. Users might consider being a little more considerate of each others' opinions, and pause more often to actually consider the other side of the argument. But that's not something that can be imposed by policy.
I'll start off by saying that while I try to be diplomatic most of the time, my diplomacy sometimes slips a bit in KDE related threads. I'll try to improve in that area. But don't expect me to sugar-coat, either! ;-)
Member since:2005-08-18
Well, I think we could all do with a little less "some blog somewhere that no one reads mentioned something unimportant about [Windows7|Ubuntu|Linux] in a [bad|good] way".
I'll say...
Member since:
2005-07-08
"Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have released research detailing how molecules in chips can self-assemble, potentially reducing manufacturing costs. The researchers have developed a technique in which polymers automatically fall into place to create an integrated circuit." Uhm people, have we learned nothing?
"In this article, the authors investigate the impact of DRM restrictions on the demand for music downloads. [A new model] estimates the impact of DRM on consumers' willingness to pay for songs (both favorites and nonfavorites) and on the producer revenues and profits. Based on two studies of more 2000 college students, the results suggest that despite the potential advantages offered by some DRM restrictions, on balance the elimination of DRM has a net positive impact on producer revenue, profit, and consumer welfare."
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Today's mobile space is owned by the likes of Nokia, RIM, Apple, and Google. While some of these corporations have embraced some open source components, a full FLOSS solution has yet to gain traction. Why? Blogger Bradley M. Kuhn posts thoughtful analysis of the current state of Open Source in the mobile space.Jim Bray, who played a major role in the XML standardisation effort, has joined Google to work on Android, and his words for the iPhone are pretty harsh. "The iPhone vision of the mobile Internet's future omits controversy, sex, and freedom, but includes strict limits on who can know what and who can say what. Itâs a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers. The people who create the apps serve at the landlord's pleasure and fear his anger. I hate it."
"Following two unsuccessful attempts at forcing ISP Telenor to block The Pirate Bay in Norway, the IFPI and performing rights outfit TONO have abandoned their legal action. The case will not now head to the Supreme Court but instead the entertainment groups will pin their hopes on new legislation."
"A number of humorous yet undocumented features are hiding beneath the surface of some of the most popular open source software applications. Although easter eggs are generally easy to spot when you can look at an application's source code, there are a few that aren't widely known."
"In March 2008, Microsoft and Nokia announced their commitment to make Silverlight available for certain Nokia phones running the Symbian operating system. Microsoft is finally ready to make a beta of that code available. Microsoft briefly posted, then pulled, the download of the beta of the Silverlight for Symbiancode on March 11, as well as the associated developer tools for that release. I grabbed the description of the downloads before they were zapped."
New Zealand's internet filtering system went live last month - but the government forgot to mention this to its electorate until its hand was forced by online freedom campaign, Tech Liberty. Thomas Beagle, a spokesman for the group, said he was "very disappointed that the filter is now running" and that its launch had been conducted in such a "stealthy mode". He added: "It's a sad day for the New Zealand internet." It's sad indeed, that things like this are possible in modern democracies.