Two Years of the LiNUX.COMmunity!

The Linux boom was indeed fading. Layoffs happened left and right as companies suddenly realized they needed profitability to keep investors happy. (What a novel concept.) Stocks dropped like the proverbial stones, several companies went out of business entirely and everyone began to get antsy. What would happen next?

While dot com companies come and go, Linux is still gaining in market share and the hackers don't care about market share anyhow. -Gareth Watts, Senior Developer

Through it all sites like Slashdot, Freshmeat, Themes.org, LinuxToday, Kuro5hin, and dozens of others continued to bring members of the community together in their own ways. Sourceforge continued to host projects. Kernel hackers kept on hacking. Gnome and KDE kept on releasing better versions. SuSE, Red Hat, Mandrake, and other vendors continued updating their distributions. And Linux.com embarked on a complete overhaul of the site, bringing content to its readership in a fresh new way. Trae had moved on to become a community evangelist for OSDN (The Open Source Development Network), starting new projects designed to bring Linux to the masses, while Dean moved into the role of Site Director. We added a new Editor-in-Chief, Simon Hayes, who brought years of publishing experience to the team. After nearly two years of growing as a community, Linux.com was truly ready for the big time. (Despite the naysayers who said that the glory days of Linux were over.)

Today, we boast a staff of nearly a hundred, working together to publish the best Linux resource to the Web. Our articles teem with informational content; our Live! Events boast some of the best authors in the technical world; our staff bring a combined expertise to the table that some university Computer Science departments would envy. In the end, though, that's not enough; for what is a web site if no one reads it? What is a Live! Event if no one attends? The truth is that we owe everything to our readers. Many of them have become Linux.com staff themselves; those who haven't still contribute to the site in a meaningful way, via comments, article submissions, and feedback. Like all good Open Source projects, Linux.com is an evolving entity, shaped by the needs and desires of our community.

This week, our two-year birthday celebration, is a time to thank our community of readers, contributors, IRC regulars, and anyone else who's helped us along the way. A special thank you goes out to the staff, both past and present: Your contributions have helped to shape the future of Linux.com, and we never could have made it without you. We invite anyone with an interest in Linux to help out; drop by #linux.com on irc.linux.com and we'll find something for you to do, or use the article submission form to contribute content to the site. This week we're running a series of events to celebrate two years of community involvement; you can find more information on those events in this article. We hope you'll join us in remembering the past, celebrating the present, and looking forward to many more years of the LiNUX.COMmunity!

Jessica Sheffield (starlady@linux.com) joined the Linux.com staff in September of 1999 as a volunteer, and counts herself lucky to have worked part-time for the site since July of 2000, doing what she loves. She wishes to thank all the people who provided quotes and anecdotes for this article, and dedicates it to all the staff of Linux.com, past, present, and future - a better bunch of people doesn't exist in this world, and telling their story has been a labor of love.