Your opinion belongs here

– by Robin “Roblimo” Miller –
I spout off on Linux.com and NewsForge about once a week. Why me instead
of you? Because it is traditional for a publication’s editors to write regular editorials so readers can get an idea of what they are
thinking, and use that knowledge to judge any bias they might expect to see in
the publication (in our case, firmly in favor of Linux and Open Source). But it
is also traditional for readers to have their say, too.
We have comment spaces attached to all original stories we write. These are the
equivalent of a newspaper or magazine’s “letters” section, except faster and
directly tied to a story instead of published separately. If we make mistakes
— and like everyone else in the world we make a few — our readers catch them
and call us on them immediately. This is a great advantage Internet
publications have over those that appear on paper. Unedited online reader comments are
not always as nice as ones that have been selected, newspaper-like, by editors,
but that’s the way it goes. The Internet is at its best, in our opinion, when
it’s a conversation instead of one-way information delivery.

Let’s take that two-way conversation to a higher level. If you have something to say, submit it as a commentary piece instead of as a comment. If your point is clear, and we haven’t read something similar elsewhere, we’ll run it, right up top, in the same space we run our own stories and pieces Eric S. Raymond and other high-profile Open Source people send us.

Naturally, we expect you to stick to topics that directly relate to Linux or Open Source. Beyond that, it’s up to you. Positive, negative, serious and humorous commentary are all welcome. We may not agree with your opinion, but that won’t stop us from running it. We are interested in originality and clear writing, not in making sure everything that appears on Linux.com and NewsForge.com toes some sort of party line, because even we, the editors, don’t always agree with each other.

So what would like to say about Linux or Open Source (or both) to thousands of readers? Whatever it is, please email it to editors@newsforge.com for consideration, and if your work is up to par (yes, spelling and grammar count) you’ll probably see it here within a week after you send it to us.