Linux.com has been relaunched under the direction of the Linux Foundation. The Linux.com site was acquired by the Linux Foundation earlier this year from SourceForge for an an undisclosed sum.
The goal of the site is supposed to be a community hub that lets the Linux community participate and contribute their knowledge. User contributions help users to hit guru status (I’m not clear on the point system myself).
At the end of the year, the Linux Foundation will award the top Linux Guru a fully loaded Linux notebook signed by none other than the father of Linux himself, Linus Torvalds.
While at a high level I understand, admire and respect the goal of being a community site, an initial look as the site is today makes it look like a news site. More than half of the screen real estate is made up of links to Linux news and tutorials, meaning that the new Linux.com is (from a front page point of view) is yet another aggregation of Linux news.
When I spoke with Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin in March about Linux.com he assured me that the plan wasn’t for Linux.com to be a breaking news organization but rather as a resource for the Linux community as a whole.
While I don’t disagree with the breaking news part, there is little doubt in my mind that this site is going to be competitive against numerous Linux sites out there today that collect Linux news, as well those that write tutorials and reviews. Certainly Linux.com will also drive traffic to other sites (maybe I’ll even benefit, but so far, I’ve not been linked) but as the ‘brand name’ for Linux its choice of news links will also carry a certain weight of authority.
Yes the site has forums, distribution specific areas for downloads (called Distribution Central) and a collection of Linux documentation (man pages) that are extremely valuable. But even though you should never judge a book by its cover — many do — and the cover of Linux.com is heavy on news.
It will be interesting to see how this site evolves over time and if it will actually truly grow to become the broad based community resource that it aspires to become.
