Linux Journal closes

Linux Journal, a Houstonbased publication focusing on the open-source operating system Linux, has shut its doors after 23 years.

In a letter posted to the Linux Journal website and Facebook page, publisher Carlie Fairchild said the November issue would be its last.

“The simple fact is that we’ve run out of money, and options along with it,” Fairchild wrote. “We never had a wealthy corporate parent or deep pockets of our own, and that made us an anomaly among publishers, from start to finish. While we got to be good at flying close to the ground for a long time, we lost what little elevation we had in November, when the scale finally tipped irrevocably to the negative.”

The publication began as a print monthly magazine in 1994, and its first issue included an interview with Linux author Linus Torvalds. Fairchild became publisher in the early 2000s, she said, and the magazine’s headquarters relocated to Houston in 2006.

In 2011, the magazine ended its print version and moved to several digital-only formats.

In response to a question on Facebook, Fairchild said Linux Journal didn’t have enough cash to sustain even a web-only presence, thought its website remains up at linuxjournal.com.

“We have too much debt still lingering from our print days to survive a web-only transition,” she said. But her letter also expressed hope that someone might save Linux Journal.

“There is some hope, we suppose, that a savior might come through; but it will have to be one willing to pick up some of our debt, in addition to our brand, our archive, our domains, and our subscribers and readers,” she wrote.