Ever since the demise of Google+, many developers have expressed a desire to have a service that would provide a way to create and manage content in a format that would be more rich and easier to access than email messages sent to LKML.

Today, we would like to introduce people.kernel.org, which is an ActivityPub-enabled federated platform powered by WriteFreely and hosted by very nice and accommodating folks at write.as.

Why WriteFreely?

There were many candidates, but we chose WriteFreely for the following reasons:

it runs on Linux

it is free software

it is federated using ActivityPub

it supports writing rich content using markdown

it offers command-line publishing tools

How is it different from kernelplanet.org?

The Kernel Planet is an aggregator of people's individual blogs. The main distinction of the Planet site from people.kernel.org is that the authors here write on topics having to do with Linux and technology in general, while there are no such restrictions in place on the Kernel Planet. You are certainly welcome to follow both!

Who can join people.kernel.org

At this time, we are aiming to roll out this service to a subset of high-profile developers, and the easiest way to do so is to offer it initially to those folks who are listed in the MAINTAINERS file.

That said, if you are not currently in the MAINTAINERS file, but think you can be a great writer for people.kernel.org, then you can simply ask someone who is in that file to “sponsor” you. Simply add them to a cc on your invite request.

How to join people.kernel.org

See the about page for full details.