Linux Foundation takes over Linux.com
The Linux Foundation has taken over the Linux.com website, with the aim of shifting the site's focus to collaborative work.
The not-for-profit organisation said on Wednesday that it is taking over from SourceForge as the host of the site, which had been publishing news and reviews around Linux before falling quiet earlier this year. Previous host SourceForge will continue to participate in the project by selling advertising for the site, while the Linux Foundation will administer the editorial and community side.
The Linux Foundation said that the site will be run for the community, by the community.
"We are thrilled to add Linux.com to our list of programmes in service to the Linux community," said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, which sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds. "We intend for Linux.com to be the central forum for Linux information, community and collaboration."
The Linux.com portal went live in 1999, and was originally intended to be run along community collaboration lines by SourceForge, then called VA Linux Systems. The site eventually started paying contributors, but stopped commissioning articles in December 2008, according to a blog post by freelance journalist and paid contributor Bruce Byfield.
In January 2009, the site put out a notice saying that "for legal reasons", it couldn't disclose why its flow of stories had slowed, but it reassured readers that it was not about to be taken over by Microsoft or any other proprietary software company. In 1999, both Microsoft and Compaq bid for rights to the Linux.com name.
The Linux Foundation said that under its stewardship, Linux.com will rely on the community of users and developers "to create and drive the content and conversation". The organisation called for community input to build content for a beta version of the site, which it expects to go live in a few months. Existing Linux.com forums and content will remain accessible after the launch of the beta, it said.
As part of this, the group launched on Wednesday launched an online forum, called IdeaForge, for people to submit suggestions and ideas about what they would like to see on the Linux.com site.