LWN.net started in 1998 as Linux Weekly News. Its coverage is broader now — Free/Open Source Software, and sometimes immediate neighbors, with in-depth coverage of Linux kernel and related system software development — and expert. It’s one of the few publications that I can read an article about a topic that I have in depth knowledge of and not then question whether all reporting on topics I don’t have in depth knowledge of is also that bad. Because LWN.net’s reporting is good (other readers I know seem to agree). LWN.net’s logo says “Linux info from the source”; I suspect the method implied (reading source, commits, mailing lists, talking to developers) explains the goodness.

I’ve poked fun at paywalls, but for a paywall, LWN.net’s is simple and well done: most new articles are subscriber-only for one week, and subscribers can generate a link to share a paywalled article with non-subscribers. The site does have ads, though disappointingly mostly Google AdSense. It is too bad such an in-depth industry publication doesn’t attract highly specific ads, like trade publications or even well done user group newsletters used to.

It seems that starting recently LWN.net releases its original articles under the CC-BY-SA-4.0 license after one week. As of this writing a week old article, a current article, another of more general interest, archive of author guidelines timestamped February 10 mentioning “possibly under a free license”, and today mentioning CC-BY-SA-4.0. I imagine that given LWN.net’s in-depth reporting, especially on the Linux kernel, some articles might actually be usefully incorporated into educational material, documentation, Wikipedia articles.

Subscribe, or occasionally read articles older than one week. Either would probably be good for your information diet.

Update 20140507: The ‘current’ articles above are now a week old, and CC-BY-SA-4.0 licensed.