Techrights

Slashdot Media and Linux Journal: Missing Pages, Allegedly

Posted by Roy Schestowitz on Aug 07, 2024

Doc Searls has begun reproducing his own articles. He explains why:

I wrote for Linux Journal from 1996 to 2019, the final years as editor-in-chief. After ownership changed and the whole staff turned over, the new owner, Slashdot Media, agreed to keep the server up so nothing would be 404’d. I am grateful that they have kept that promise. I should add, however, that some of the archive seems to be missing—or so I assume because keyword searches on Google, Bing, and the site itself fail to bring up some items. Fortunately, I have an archive of my own writing for the magazine—or at least of the final drafts I submitted. Since the cadence of this blog has fallen off a bit, I think a good way to fill open spaces in time is to re-publish columns I wrote for Linux Journal when Linux was still an underpenguin and the open source movement was still new, growing, and a threat to the likes of Microsoft. (Which has since flipped its stance. We’re well past GandiCon 4 now.*) This piece is one example: a small hunk of history that bears re-telling. (And forgive the rotted links, because, alas, the Web is a whiteboard.)

Slashdot has not been reliable for over a decade (about 15 years). As we put it 11 days ago, it is "Acting as a Spamming Service for Microsoft".