Re: [Fsfe-uk] Free Software Magazine got cheaper

[Tom Chance]

On Saturday 12 Mar 2005 20:04, Jason Clifford wrote:
> On Sat, 12 Mar 2005, Lee Braiden wrote:
> > > So are *you* offering to finance the costs of producing and
> > > distriubuting the magazine to make this possible?
> >
> > No, but as a member of the free software community, I'd offer to write an
> > article once in a while, and if maybe to mirror a public distribution
> > site or at least to run a bittorrent seed.  The only time you need
> > corporate-style finances and resources is when you choose to be a
> > top-down distribution and enforcement organisation.  To me, that's not
> > what free software is about.
>
> The magazine is not software. It's a different form of product.
>
> In order to happen there are costs that have to be paid -
> writing, production and distribution cost real money. Even if you base the
> magazine on gratis article submissions you have to edit, typeset and
> layout the magazine. Then you have to pay for the print run and shipping
> costs for the magazine or hosting and bandwidth for the online version.

Actually, this magazine is exceptional in that they have a system using LaTeX 
and scripting to do the layout automatically. They're still fine tuning it, 
which means manually checking the PDFs carefully, but hopefully they'll end 
up with a fully automated process. It's one way they've used free software to 
keep costs down.

But you're right in that magazines incur significant costs not present for 
free software projects, where the only investment tends to be your time and 
energy. Printing and shipping aren't trivial. If someone were to set-up a 
magazine that could release articles for free under a free license 
immediately, I'd gladly write for it. In the meantime this magazine looks 
like the best in the market by some margin.

Regards,
Tom