Houston-based Linux Journal ceasing publication

Linux Journal ceased publication on Dec. 1, 2017. Linux Journal ceased publication on Dec. 1, 2017. Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Houston-based Linux Journal ceasing publication 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Linux Journal, a Houston-based publication focusing on the open-source operating system Linux, has ceased publication after 23 years.

In a letter posted to the Linux Journal website and Facebook page, Publisher Carlie Fairchild said the magazine had run out of money and the November issue would be its last:

The simple fact is that we've run out of money, and options along with it. We never had a wealthy corporate parent or deep pockets of our own, and that made us an anomaly among publishers, from start to finish. While we got to be good at flying close to the ground for a long time, we lost what little elevation we had in November, when the scale finally tipped irrevocably to the negative.

The publication began as a print monthly magazine in 1994, and its first issue included an interview with Linux creator Linus Torvalds. Fairchild became publisher in the early 2000s, she said, and the magazine's headquarters relocated to Houston 2006.

In 2011, the magazine ended its print version and moved to several digital-only formats.

In response to a question on Facebook, Fairchild said Linux Journal didn't have enough cash to sustain even a web-only presence.

We have too much debt still lingering from our print days to survive a web only transition. We made digital w/a subscription model work for the last 8 years... no small feat as you probably appreciate more than most. Advertisers today want eyeballs, eyeballs, eyeballs, tracking, tracking, and more tracking. We can't compete against click bait and Facebook "news". Nor do we want to. We are an example of long form, technical journalism at it's best, and as you and I know there's a price that comes with that.

Fairchild also expressed hope in her publisher's letter that someone might save Linux Journal, but added that would be a tall order:

There is some hope, we suppose, that a savior might come through; but it will have to be one willing to pick up some of our debt, in addition to our brand, our archive, our domains and our subscribers and readers. If you know anyone who can make a serious offer, let us know. Otherwise, watch LinuxJournal.com and hope that at least our legacy archives (which go back to Linux Journal's birth in April 1994, when Linux hit 1.0) won't go away. There's a lot of great stuff here, and a lot of history we'd hate the world to lose.

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