I’m very pleased to announce the addition of some new members to the core OSNews staff. Thom Holwerda and Andrew Youll officially started late last night, and as you can see from their postings, they’ve hit the ground running. Read more for some information on the latest additions to our family, and also for some exciting news about the site.
Thom Holwerda is our new Managing Editor, our new editorial “top spot,” so he’s the go-to guy for all editorial issues and the lightning rod for the inevitable fusillade of criticism (my sympathies, Thom). He is joined by Andrew Youll, who will be using his background in programming to keep an eye on the latest news on the development front.
OSNews’ stalwart Editor-in-Chief, Eugenia Loli-Queru, is relinquishing the top spot in order to take some much-needed rest and relaxation, and get out from under both the burden of everyday updates and the stresses of butting heads with ideologically-charged OS partisans on a daily basis. Eugenia will still be contributing to the site, but at a more measured pace, and I’m confident that we haven’t seen the last of her. Eugenia’s new title is Senior Editor.
If you feel so inclined, please contact Eugenia to urge her to keep her contributions regular, but if you have gripes about the site, or want to complain about how we’re biased against your pet platform, plese contact Thom or David from now on.
A long-time OSNews contributor, Adam Scheinberg, has taken on a vastly-expanded role of late, and our readers will mostly likely see the fruits of that labor later this week. We’re on the cusp of unveiling OSNews version three, a dramatic new commenting system that promises to improve the signal-to-noise ratio in the comments. You will soon be able to log into OSNews and customize your OSNews experience. It won’t look or act much differently, but under the hood it’s a whole new animal. Keep an eye out for an announcement of a public beta test in a few days.
If you’d like to learn more about our new OSNews contributors, please follow their personal links on the contact us page.
If you have any requests or advice for any of our new contributors, please use the comments link for this story. And we need contributions of news items, articles, reviews, and opinion pieces from our readers as much as ever. Thom says he loves editing, so let’s put him to work with some submissions!
The J2EE open source story he posted today and the one posted yesterday.
So is Thom double-dipping with his web site or did he close up shop on that?
If so an alternative route could have been to pay freelance writers to write articles for OSNews. A lot of other sites already do this. I know you guys get a lot of submissions for free but money does have a magical way of encouraging people.
Nobody at OSNews is paid. If we had to pay our contributors, it would be such a small sum that it would be an insult to the hard work that they put in. 🙂
Probably not. Eugenia has said that OSNews might bring in $70/month in ad revenue.
I miss Eugenia already.
Dave,
As I told you in the corresponding thread, there was no dupe. One item was the announcement that Sun might open Java– the item today was the release itself as mentioned by Jonathan Schwarz.
According to your logic, the item saying: “Apple To Switch Intel” and a few days later “Jobs: Apple To Switch To Intel” are also dupes.
I hope you understand it now. If not, feel free to email me.
$70/month?! No way. With all those hits. I bet most of the ads on this site are pay per click.
I heard a rumor once OSNews gets around 200k visitors a day. Doesn’t Google Adsense pay per 1000 page views? Wouldn’t that increase the ad revenue?
And as a general reply, some people have been asking me what will happen to my previous “employer”, http://www.expert-zone.com .
Expert-Zone, which isn’t owned by me but by Andrew Youll, will go in the fridge. This means that the site will remain up, because other sites have linked to EZ and its articles. Me and Andrew have a had a lot of fun with Expert Zone, but it’s final future isn’t yet known. For now, it will just remain up.
I’m very happy to be part of OSNews now, and I hope I can do my thing succesfully here.
Thankfully, we do make more than $70 per month, considering that our monthly hosting and management bill is like ten times that.
One GNOME fanboy leaves, the other arrives.
http://www.expert-zone.com/index.php?module=announce&ANN_user_op=vi…
http://www.expert-zone.com/index.php?module=announce&ANN_user_op=vi…
http://www.expert-zone.com/index.php?module=announce&ANN_user_op=vi…
http://www.expert-zone.com/index.php?module=announce&ANN_user_op=vi…
Thom and Andrew!
I hope Eugenia will still post articles/rants on software and linux.
You’ve already dip.t-dialiners that are bitter that you aren’t a KDE fanboy.
I guess it would only be “fair” if OSNews pulled an Ubuntu and spun off a KDEOSNews.com site ala Kubuntu.
… a dramatic new commenting system that promises to cut down the signal-to-noise ratio in the comments
I sincerely hope that you mean the opposite
Will
Yes, I kind of messed up my metaphor there, didn’t I? I meant to improve the signal-to-noise ratio.
> You’ve already dip.t-dialiners that are bitter that you
> aren’t a KDE fanboy.
Dave, that’s not the point. The point was that Eugenia made this site nearly a defacto GNOME related site. Presenting all kind of stuff here even if not suited to be presented here (personal blogs, misinterpreted articles, wrong facts etc.) I recently found out that Adam himself (?) was a former RedHat employee which made me understand quite some stuff why this site was so GNOME centric. Now I spent some time investigating who these two new youngsters are and from their articles shown at the former site I figured out that both of them are quite GNOME centric too. So I worry whether this site OSNews is or can become an independant neutral place for unbiased optinions or whether we have to deal with GNOME centric stuff again, over and over and over. Making everything GNOME related become a hype and everything KDE related a mess. A considerable point to worry about.
The point is that you are free to start your own site that is KDE centric. There’s lots of crap around here that I don’t like – ala the GNU zealot crowd, but I don’t pay the bills so…
Anyway, you got the Qt4 story, what’s your problem? Should OSNews be a mirror of dot.kde.org?
If you would have looked at my latest entry, you would have seen that I just switched my Linux box over to Xfce…
http://thom-holwerda.blogspot.com/2005/06/switched-to-xfce.html
😀
Hehe, that’s a gtk+ based desktop, so you’ll still see the criticism from the dip-t-dialiners.
Maybe you should run fluxbox, with an equal number of QT/KDE and Gnome/Gtk+ apps
Actually, it was me who used to work at Red Hat, though I was in their e-commerce/webserver division and didn’t have anything to do with Gnome, and I only use Linux on the server (though I think it makes a great server) so enough with your Gnome conspiracy theories.
Eugenia was engaged in the Gnome world, and I don’t think anyone would deny that. However, she became involved in Gnome because she saw a need for some input, and an opportunity to launch a Gnome apps site like KDE already had. She got nothing but grief from Gnome heavies for her participation, and AFAIK, she rarely used Gnome for everyday desktop use. If you felt that OSNews was too Gnome centric, I’m afraid that nothing is going to change. We’re still going to announce Gnome news, and if you can’t handle that, then I’m sorry.
The point that OSNews or Slashdot or any other tech organization is “biased” is moot. The same way that most general news organizations are biased. Take the CNN and Fox News analogy. Most people in America would say CNN is liberal, while Fox is conservative.
All news organizations try their best to be fair, but they are ultimately composed of individual and an individual, for better or worse, is nothing more than a bad mix of biases.
So the “solution” is not to go around asking people to change but to read different news sites. Have a balanced diet. This way you also ensure you get a better perspective on things. All in all, reading many different kinds of sites is the only way to be well informed.
I enjoy reading this site, and it is often the first thing I visit when I get into work.
I’m sure i recognize Thom from the SkyOS forums, and I look forward to reading your articles. 🙂
I only use Linux on the server
Oops…now you have to tell us what you use on the desktop.
having her as “employee” would be even better
Nice to see some new faces.
David uses Mac OS X most of the time, it’s his main OS. He also has a Windows box around. But he doesn’t have a desktop/workstation Linux box at all, only a server-in-a-closet kind of thing.
Thank you.
Yeah Eugenia, I miss you already. Thanks for the response.
Eugenia did a great job with this site, and I’m sure you guys will continue to do excellent work. Best of luck to you.
Also, thanks for working on a new commenting system. It’s a much-needed feature that could make OSNews a lot better.
Eugenia, thank you for your service here! I’m very glad for you that you finally seem to be getting a life! OSNews have influenced my work by informing me about several important specific things I would have missed otherwise, and helping me see the big picture, too. So, thank you!
Cheers, and erase the trolls, the zealots and the technological worshippers from your memory
.
As for OSNews, I hope it doesn’t become more inhumane in the future.
I hope Eugenia will change her mind , she is a very good technical writer who is very competent and knowleadgeable on many of the content she offer I may not agreee with it all of the time , but one feel that she is working really hard at giving the best possible content that she can offer.
If she is leaving for good it will be a great lost to this site and I hope the best for her in her new endeavor , if she decide to stay and concentrate on her article writing It will just give her more time for more content ;-), which is a good thing in my book.
For the new guy welcome to the site as moderator/writer , and just dont moderate my post into oblivion ;-), I like some of your text so far 😉
“But he doesn’t have a desktop/workstation Linux box at all”
What !!! we found the traitor 😉 , now we must convert him at all cost 😉 BTW everyone know that Red Hat is not good for desktop 😉
Good to see some new faces – welcome aboard Thom & Andrew
sorry about the /. joke..
Welcome Thom and Andrew
> She got nothing but grief from Gnome heavies for her
> participation
Yes this sadly is reflecting the reality and the personal experience I and others made. The GNOME camp is known for their rude practices. A good friend of mine wanted to start a female GNOME site specially for female people and the GNOME crowd told him to basicly f*sk off and they told him that his ideas are wrong, not applicable and bad. Now months later some RedHat females came up with the brilliant idea creating a female GNOME site and voila, they got CVS acces, mailinglist was created, full support. I think you need to have a good company behind your name to be worth something in an open community.
> If you felt that OSNews was too Gnome centric, I’m
> afraid that nothing is going to change. We’re still
> going to announce Gnome news, and if you can’t handle
> that, then I’m sorry.
Well it was quite GNOME centric due to the amount of articles. 2/3 of the stuff showing up here was usually related towards GNOME/MONO/GTK+/FREEDESKTOP or some GNOME crowd blogs and some other stuff and the far remaining 1/3 was normal random stuff.
Anyways, I am not criticising something that I don’t pay from my own pockets, no doubt. But then I as reader and visitor which this site is geared to would like to expect some more neutral articles and fair treatment. I saw really often how your own nettiquette and terms of usage is even violated by your own editors only to shape the stuff how it fits them, not how it would have been fair.
Think about this.
One thing I’d like to see is threaded discussion. Topics tended to get lost far too easily here. Its the reason I stopped responding to articles on a regular basis, by the time you were discussing anything interesting it was off the main page.
I concur; Eugenia has done a spectacular job with OSnews. I hope the newbies will continue the un-biased force.
We’ll try not to drive you as insane as we did Eugenia!
i for one welcome our new Gnome-loving overlords!
i will miss you dearly, Eugenia. welcome to Thom and Andrew.
>One thing I’d like to see is threaded discussion.
It’s not going to happen. There is a new system under development, but it’s not threaded.
I thought I was the only guy who liked threaded forums…. I wrote one once, and everyone said they hated it. I was like … but that’s the cool part!
Congrads new staff! Sorry to see you go Eugenia.
I personally enjoy seeing fresh content on the front page. I know in the morning, and late afternoons there will always be new stuff to read. Maybe a forum would be a better avenue?
Yeah,
thanks for your hard work on OSNews all this time Eugenia.
Hope you’ll find something else to devote your time on. (That actually is appriciated)
What happens to Gnomefiles now?
Oh, and hello to the new staff
Sad to see you give up the hot seat but I understand.
The larger number of visitors has unfortunately brought in a large number of noisy fools over the last couple of years.
Hopefully the new comments system will help fix this.
eugenia put a lot of time and effort into osnews, she really deserves a rest. thanks, eugenia, many of your articles were very informative to me.
I really enjoyed all the articles you’ve posted over the years, Eugenia. Especially for keeping us informed about the Be world, and interesting projects like SkyOs
I’ve noticed that updates to OSNews seems to happen in clusters a lot of the time – there are no new stories for a couple of hours, and then ten or so new headlines are posted within a couple of minutes.
It would be nice if the newsflow could be made more even. One idea could be to have a headline scheduler, where the poster inserts the new headline some time in the future, and the system itself evens out the postings.
Or maybe there is a reason for the “clustered” postings?
Anyway, thanks for a great site! And a warm welcome to the new guys!
hi people sorry for only just posting, i’ve only just got back from HGV driving Lesson, and from work, also my login details dont work as of yet, so just hang tight.
and for those people saying One GNOME Fanoy for another, i personally prefer KDE, although i will work in a GNOME env’ if i must.
and seems like my profile page in contact us is wrong so click my name to view my profile.
>Or maybe there is a reason for the “clustered” postings?
6 AM to 11 AM PST time is the biggest traffic time. However, usually there are two bunches of updates daily, morning and evening.
Good for Eugenia. Life has more to offer than gratuitous insults from blinkered intolerant adolescents.
Maybe someone can start an open source/Linux site with age and emotional maturity standards.
I love OS News and have been parusing the site for years now. I think Eugenia contributed positively ove the years but i can see how the site has been going downhill (just a little). The countless Ubuntu point release articles and YALD articles really get tiresome. At first it was easy enough to skip them over and get to the more interesting stuff but lately it seems like Linux articles comprise the majority of articles. Fresh blood is a good thing and hopefully they can bring in a different less linux centric view.
“Truth told, I don’t want to deal with the OS zealot-assholes anymore either. The losers can take their Linux/Mac/MS/Be/GPL/Gnome/kde/whatever distortion field and shove it up their asses.”
Always so poetic.
> i can see how the site has been going downhill (just a little).
On the contrary. OSNews is as big as ever: 275,000 pageviews daily, on average.
>Always so poetic.
Always.
“but lately it seems like Linux articles comprise the majority of articles.”
How can you say that? Every single build of Longhorn, every single patch for Windows, and every Windows legal issue is covered here. Even Ballmer gets his own thread on a regular basis (seemingly more often than Gates himself). And this, of course, is not even taking into account the barrage of Mac Mini and Tiger reviews/opinions/impressions that decsended upon this place.
Face it, it’s all a matter of perception. That which a person does NOT want to see here always seems overwhelming on this site.
i remember reading a post at slashdot from david adams saying that he resigned as osnews editor!
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=151108&cid=12677558
so whats going on? is he really still the publisher or did he post a fake resignation to try to confuse people?
We all like to resign every couple of days. It’s good for the spirit.
I don’t see much coverage in any of the bios for the staff as it relates to MS.
How long has it been since MS Small Business Server 2003 had service pack 1 released and I don’t believe an article or news story has covered it.
Is this a coincidence?
>Is this a coincidence?
No, it is simply a fact that no one submitted it. While I don’t personally like it, the fact is that most readers on osnews are alternative OS users, mostly Linux users. I like OSNews to have readers from all OSes, but because Linux has many distros, it ends up having more coverage here, and then this attracts more Linux users. And these linux users don’t care to submit about MS Small Business Server 2003 service pack 1.
Go Youlle and Thom!!!
hope to see some goo stuff from ya guys like allways.
if you read my bio i have used pretty much every Microsoft OS to exist, except the early NT versions, i have recently even played with MS Xenix on an 386, which was an experience and a half.
i have 2 Dedicated Windows machines and i have an Athlon64 Nix box, which i run Vidlinux 1.1 on…. well it started out as VLOS 1.1 it more like Pure Gentoo now
“No, it is simply a fact that no one submitted it.”
That’s not true because I submitted it myself. No big deal if something like that gets lost in the shuffle of a big and busy site with lots of email, but with a staff of tech lovers, I would have thought it would be a pretty major story for one of the best selling server OS’s on the market. Now the staff knows, so maybe we can see something now.
….Especially considering it isn’t just a patch but includes a free update to ISA 2004 (from 2000), a pretty nice bonus.
Anyway, thanks Eugenia for taking care of this site all this time. I see you as the face of this place and I’ve spent a lot of time here over the last few years. Thanks for the hard work and time put into keeping me informed (and entertained).
Youlle how comes the linux distor you were working on?
i actually halted doing that, im working with Gentoo, more specifically the gentoo based distro Vidalinux.
i was also working closely with the PC-BSD Project in producing Software packages and writing tutorials for the system. but atm the present release doesnt boot on my Athon64 and it screws HD Geometry so no work on that front atm.
ok then best of luck man!
Looks like I will have go back to working.
Congrats for my part also
Maybe I’m in the dark here, but if it weren’t for Eugenia, wouldn’t we not be able to have these discussions in the first place? I hardly think the language or tone of many of the preceding posts is appropriate or even respectful.
Judging from most of the comments here, Eugenia made the right call. I wouldn’t let most of you in my house.
amen to that..
If you feel so inclined, please contact Eugenia to urge her to keep her contributions regular, but if you have gripes about the site, or want to complain about how we’re biased against your pet platform, plese contact Thom or David from now on.
This was a refreshingly gracious comment, David.
Given how awful eugenia’s contributions to the site have been over the last year, I for one am glad it’s turned over. Thom and Andrew did an excellent job with expert-zone, and I hope they bring good things here.
I hope you both know what you’re getting into. Eugenia, thanks for everything, and I hope you get that rest, but I’ll still be looking out for pieces from you.
There goes the neighborhood.
These guys are pretty much already censoring more than even Eugenia used to. I’ve been watching this thread, and every time someone expressed the opinion that it was good to see Eugenia go, or made any criticism of osnews they erased it. Sure it’s their site, but this is why I usually spend more time on sites that actualy offer an open forum, rather than a filtered set of comments that the site’s maintainer happened to agree with.
Eugenia may be gone, but it’s clear that she’s still pulling the strings.
I’ve been a reader for several years, and really enjoy reading OS news, even though all of the silly, immature comments by trolls have pretty much caused me to stop reading comments that follow the articles. Maybe if we had threaded comments that would help? But I’ll continue to read OSNews every morning. Engena did a great job with the site, and I wish Thom and Andrew the best of luck with the site!
Take care,
-Frank Merenda
I don’t moderate normal criticism, and as you can see, your post will not be modded because it’s not a post made just to be offensive, most of the posts that have been moderated in this thread are.
There’s a fine line between constructive criticism and blatantly posting insults. It is our job to define that fine line. And yes, I’m the first to acknowledge that mistakes have been made, and *surprise*, more will be made in the future.
Running a website involves human beings, and humans make mistakes. Deal with it.
Congratulations to you Thom! Now let’s hope you don’t abuse us @ SkyOS IRC ^_^
Hi New Guys!
Firstly, I hope your initiation goes smoothly. There will be the usual troll-chasing, followed by a blow-by-blow criticism of your every move.
Once we get past that, I’m sure you will settle in.
Sorry to see Eugina ‘promoted’ away from us, but new blood now and then is a good idea.
I’m sure you know your jobs: keep posting Flamebait articles, mod down any criticism and deride your opponent’s ancestry … oh, sorry, that must be some other site!
As the saying goes, Only Time Will Tell, but I’ll be here to check up on you! Keep up the good work.
> i can see how the site has been going downhill (just a little).
On the contrary. OSNews is as big as ever: 275,000 pageviews daily, on average.
270,000 hits from Linux Fanboys, 5000 from True IT professionals.(a guess)