Free Software Magazine Inaugural Issue Released

T ony Merc Mobily writes "Free Software Magazine is a new magazine entirely dedicated to free software. It contains quality articles relating to both technical and non-technical issues. The magazine's goal is to publish good articles which are then released under a free license after publication. The magazine obviously needs subscribers - the more, the better!" It's nice to be able to download magazines as PDF files, too.

And information wants to be free as well...

[X43B]

Huzzah, the pdf is free and doesn't look to shabby. Some interesting articles on OS X and live CD's. I hope their advertising model holds up.

Old FSM?

[Unknown Lamer]

There was an old Free Software Magazine that was backed by the FSF in China that had two issues and then died years ago (first issue was in Dec 2001).

Directory listing of FSM issues [free-soft.org]. They made #3 but I don't think it was ever officially released (I actually submitted a really bad draft of an article for it that ended up being 'published' because I lost net access for about six months...)

The old FSM was officially endorsed by the FSF. This one appears to not have that. It looks like it is far better written than the other FSM though. Not all of the articles are focused on Free Software though (e.g. the one in issue0 about OS X).

Wait Wait

[GweiLeong]

Is this free as in "clean" freeware? I'm talking about non crippleware (ohhh you wanted to PRINT your file you made, sorry you gotta pay for that), non spyware/dialer funded (honey, what are all these calls to... Horny Grandmas R Us?), non adware?

Re:Wait Wait

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this free as in "clean" freeware? I'm talking about non crippleware (ohhh you wanted to PRINT your file you made, sorry you gotta pay for that), non spyware/dialer funded (honey, what are all these calls to... Horny Grandmas R Us?), non adware?

Far better than that: this is Free as in Freedom, which means that there are no limitations on how you may use it, and no restrictions[1] on copying, modification, and distribution. Or in other words: share and enjoy! :)

[1] (With the exception that much Free Sof

Great magazine

[jkauzlar]

This is a very nicely layed-out magazine with some good in-depth articles. Well done! There's even a 6-page 'blog' written by Richard Stallman at the end. It seems like most tech magazines focus on software/hardware reviews, where FSM's coverage includes many of the political and ideological topics in software engineering.

Re:Great magazine

[superpulpsicle]

But I won't read it until 50% of the magazine is bloated with advertisement. Isn't that the requirement for all high-subscription based popular magazine.

Re:Great magazine

[tanguyr]

from their subscription page:

"Subscriptions are our main source of income, and we offer free advertising to free software companies."

Now that's putting your money where your mouth is.

Re:Great magazine

[DaveJay]

I agree. I was about to post a snarky comment, then read yours and realized that this is actually a good thing.

Too bad this isn't front page news

[twistedcubic]

The magazine looks nice, and seems like a genuine effort. Not sure why it's in the "developers" section, but I guess there isn't anything else appropriate. I'm thrilled that it was done using LaTeX. They should try to get this in the book store chains.

Pills

[stoolpigeon]

The site says they have 'pills' and describes them as "hort, mostly unedited articles about free software written by our readers. They can be commentaries, editorials, and so on. Ideally, we will have one different pill every day."

I love the idea- but I don't know that I would put one right on the front page of the site. Today's pill contains a grammatical error in the first couple sentences. Until I did some poking around I thought it was an actual article. If I had not found the explanation above I

This is not cool

[aaron240]

This really should have been a front-page article. The magazine looks really nice and has good articles in it. Disclaimer: I wrote one of them.

They have my subscription

[mikefe]

How about you?

Re:They have my subscription

[jmusits]

This looks like a very promising magazine. However the subscription price is outrageous. $10 initially and then $6.95 a month when the issue is delivered. That is one damn expensive magazine @ $93.40 a year. Me thinks I'll stick to the free PDF version for now.

Priced ridiculously high

[JohnQPublic]

At US$71.40/year plus a US$10.00 "administration fee", it better get better fast. The articles are nice, but they don't justify a price that high.

The publishers clearly expect a decent number of ads, as they've reserved quite a bit of space, and even have a few of what appear to be paid ads. That's actually *very* good for the first issue of any new magazine.

I wish them luck, but I'll be browsing it online for a while before I subscribe to any periodical whose pricing is that far out of line with its market.

A bit pricey but...

[some_random_person]

The subscription fee is a bit high, but the content is excellent. They say that they'll lower the subscription fees after they get more customers, so I hope they get enough people soon enough that they can lower the price and draw in even more people. It would be great for a magazine like this to succeed.
Here's an idea: For all of you that work IT jobs for companies that are willing to subscribe to various periodicals for you, why not get your employer to buy a subscription to this magazine?