Bonum Certa Men Certa

Concerns About IBM's Commitment to OpenSource.com After the Fall of Linux.com and Linux Journal

Long history to that domain, from OSI control (not today's OSI) to Red Hat alias and now IBM's

OpenSource.com



Summary: The Web site OpenSource.com is over two decades old; in its current form it's about a decade old and it contains plenty of good articles, but will IBM think so too and, if so, will investment in the site carry on?

PUBLISHING is tough. It's especially tough when writers expect a salary. Where does money come from? It varies; there are options. A publisher we often link to (because it writes about a dozen articles per day), Common Dreams, apparently has rich donors pumping a million bucks into it every year, but they want something in return (maybe ideological). Maybe the donors are the readers alone. What about GNU/Linux? In its true and pure form nobody 'owns' it; it's not proprietary.



Linux Journal's sad demise just months after Linux.com's demise (the site might go offline permanently within days or weeks due to lack of funds) is very troubling. We already see the effect; there's a lot less news about GNU/Linux. Here in Techrights, e.g. for the purpose of daily links, we need to dig deeper and deeper in order to find links and picks. There's an information vacuum and it's being exploited by few malicious corporations, e.g. for googlebombing. They hijack the narrative and misinform the public.

"IBM has just confirmed nearly 1,000 layoffs in the UK in spite of financial resurgence in that market."For a variety of reasons we've long been sceptical of IBM's intentions. Will it keep Red Hat's news sites going (there are several)? And if so, which ones? If there's no "business model", then IBM will likely shut it down. IBM has just confirmed nearly 1,000 layoffs in the UK in spite of financial resurgence in that market. That's just typical IBM. If a site doesn't help IBM sales, it probably won't last long. If a member of staff isn't profitable to IBM, he or she will be handed a pink slip. Last we checked, OpenSource.com had outsourced the technical/back end aspect to Acquia; it is a large Drupal site and it won't be cheap to maintain it, let alone pay writers to add new articles to it. Without new articles a site becomes merely an archive. It's less attractive because it's eternally outdated.

Rikki Endsley, the person who edited OpenSource.com for a long time, retweeted Linux Journal and added: "Well this is sad news. Sending hugs out to the Linux Journal folks." Jim Hall, who wrote for Linux Journal and sometimes writes for OpenSource.com, wrote about it last week (at OpenSource.com).

Endsley's relocation or reassignment is curious.

Months ago we noticed that she had stopped writing for OpenSource.com. We asked questions like, did she leave (jump) or was she pushed? Did IBM play a role in this? Nobody from Red Hat is willing to say anything. Some of them saw these questions. Some might even have answers.

"Nobody from Red Hat is willing to say anything."Her profile says: "Rikki Endsley is the Developer Program managing editor at Red Hat, and a former community architect and editor for Opensource.com." Twitter says "Editor ✒️ @RHdevelopers".

She's no longer listed here in "Meet the team" (of OpenSource.com) however. "Jen Wike Huger is the managing editor for Opensource.com," it says and many of the articles are nowadays technical posts from Red Hat's own staff. It's not what it used to be. Lots of posts are promotion of Red Hat products like Ansible.

It seems clear that Endsley is still with Red Hat, but we wonder what goes on at Red Hat; she still tweets, but there are no posts in the site she edited (since the middle of February). Is IBM committed to it? In October 2018 IBM made its plans known (for Red Hat), but IBM isn't a publisher and it has lots of financial issues.

"Is IBM committed to it? In October 2018 IBM made its plans known (for Red Hat), but IBM isn't a publisher and it has lots of financial issues."Endsley probably knows what's going on. We contacted her earlier today and have not heard back. The Red Hat developers site she does participate in, possible alongside other Red Hat roles, but the main question is, what is going on at OpenSource.com? They must have published about 10,000 articles, some of them very long and detailed. My wife has read OpenSource.com for about 6 years, almost every day. She says the quality of the articles has vastly decreased and she hardly finds anything of interest there anymore.

Is OpenSource.com potentially the next casualty of the media-pocalypse? We hope not. The people who have closely been involved with the site probably know a lot more and have a rough (if not good) idea what IBM plans for the site. Something must have been communicated to them at some point since last year. Was Endsley reassigned, based on her skills, to another department/site? Did she choose to move. Unless someone opens his/her mouth, we can only speculate. The silence doesn't inspire much confidence.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

The 'Culture Wars' in Free Software Have Gone Out of Control
Social control media amplifies such utterly infantile discourse
10 Out of 10: RMS Attracts Massive Audience in Göteborg, Sweden (All Seats Occupied, Some People Standing)
a 55-second clip of his talk
The Lawsuit by Clients of Brett Wilson LLP Against Brett Wilson LLP is Officially On, It is Progressing, The 'Experts' Pick Outside Law Firms (RPC and Mills & Reeve) to Spare Them From Litigants in Person
So it is probably quite potent
Slopwatch: Plagiarism and "Linux" Articles by Bots
Sites that do this won't survive; many of them rely on slop services (suppliers) that will cease to exist after the bubble bursts
 
Microsoft Cancelling Another Datacentre is a Sign of Financial Trouble and Lack of Growth
The debt continues to grow
Gemini Links 11/10/2025: An Evening at the Fair and Fast Fourier Friday
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 10, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 10, 2025
Geminispace is Very Large
The word continues to spread and the number of participants grows
Teaser: To Compensate for the Fact Our Clients Are Terrible Human Beings Who Strangle Women (While on Microsoft's Payroll) and We Get Paid by Mystery Parties We Bombard You and Your Wife With Almost 10 Kilograms of Legal Papers
If you can't win an argument, then drown the other side with papers?
Another Wave of Microsoft Layoffs, This Time During National Day Holiday
This time it's China again
Staying Happy in Times of Crackdowns on Civil Society
Optimism in this sort of "new reality" or "new normal" seems like something for the irrational person
"Nobel" Exploited Posthumously for "AI" Hype, Now They Do the Same With "Quantum"
ere have been many jokes about "Nobel" for peace (often granted to pro-war people) and a fake one for "Economics" (establishment propaganda)
Distinguished Lecture by Richard Stallman This Coming Monday in Rome
After "Free software, Crucial for Freedom in a Digital World"
Links 10/10/2025: Putin Admits Russia Downed Azerbaijan Airlines Jet, More New Heat Records
Links for the day
Noteworthy Claim That IBM is Firing a Lot of Lawyers This Week (RAs in the Legal Department)
A lot of what they do is patent 'trolling' or lawyering up against their own staff (e.g. HR disputes)
Links 10/10/2025: US Judge Bars Attacks by ICE On Journalists and Protesters; “We Took The Freedom of Speech Away” Says the President
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Serial Sloppers, Google News Gifting Slopfarms, and Fake News/Plagiarism About "Linux"
Google itself is a slop pusher these days
Qualcomm, the New Owner of Arduino, Blasted for Its Software Patents Tax on 'Smartphones'
A lot of Qualcomm's patents are on software. We wrote about this in prior years.
XBox Layoffs Rumours, Downtime, and Criticism From XBox Co-Founder
"everyone is ditching the xbox."
Links 10/10/2025: Honoring The Legacy Of Robert Murray-Smith, Many Articles on the Hey Hi (AI) Bubble
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: October Gothic and Reading Middle Earth Role Playing; C and Ada
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 09, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 09, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Farewell to Jane Goodall, California Bans Algorithmic Price-Fixing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Lost Wages and a Saga Of Continuing To Use Palm PDAs
Links for the day
Richard Stallman's Talk in Helsinki is Done. Tomorrow Göteborg.
There are scarce details in Finnish about Dr. Stallman's talk
New XBox Leaks Probably Serve to Confirm XBox's Collapse (Many More Layoffs)
It's very much consistent with what many other sites have reported lately
The Slop Song
The train wreck marches on
LLM Slop/Advanced Plagiarism Flooding the Zone With Capital That Does Not Exist
Many publishers out there still participate in this bubble instead of calling it what it is
Links 09/10/2025: Sacked Microsoft Workers Make "Sackbird", IBM Taps CockroachDB for PostgreSQL
Links for the day
"Happy Hacking Day" Richard Stallman Talk This Afternoon (From 14:00 to 16:00) at Haaga-Helia University in Pasila
Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 08, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 08, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Impact of Microsoft Layoffs, More Data Breaches
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Autumn Blues and C IRC Bot
Links for the day