Episode: 1689
Title: HPR1689: Linux Voice magazine at OggCamp
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1689/hpr1689.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 07:44:45

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This is HPR episode 1689 entitled Linux Voice Magazine at Otcamp and is part of the series Otcamp.
It is hosted by Benny and is about 11 minutes long. The summary is another interview from Otcamp
with the guys from Linux Voice. This episode of HPR is brought to you by an Honesthost.com.
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HPR15. That's HPR15.
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Welcome to Hacker Public Radio. This is Benny with yet another interview from Otcamp this year.
This is to one interview coronaminal and I did together. We walked up to the stand of the Linux
Voice Magazine and asked them some questions. As you might know the Linux Voice Magazine is quite a
young magazine. It was just founded one year ago. So we were interested why you would found the
magazine in a time like this and why they were motivated to start something new. So here we go.
Enjoy the interview. I'm Benny for Hacker Public Radio and I'm talking to Linux Voice Magazine.
I'm Ben Everard. Yeah and I'm Mike Saunders. Right and why do we see you with a table at Otcamp?
Well we're sponsoring Otcamp actually. We are one of the platinum sponsors of Gold Sponsors.
Yeah so we're here to meet people to see what's going on to sell some magazines as well. We've
got a stand here with various issues and I've been challenging people at Super Mario Kart,
the SNES version. So far only some kids have played me so yeah I'm not really kicking as much
ass as I hoped but yeah. So you're better than the kids? Then the kids yes but of course most of the
kids weren't even born and this game was made so yeah that's I do have the distinct advantage there
that I was alive. Yeah yeah we've got some t-shirts as well and we got some mugs with
Grace Hopper on it yeah. So in case there's anybody out there that doesn't know what is
Linux Voice? Linux Voice is a print and digital magazine about
the newest last Linux free software. We crowdfunded it at the end of last year on Indiegogo.
We raised £127,000 to start our own print magazine. We all used to work on a magazine called
Linux format and we all wanted to create something new and independent and the unique thing about
our magazine is that we get 50% of our profits back to the community. So like Free Software Foundation,
EFF readers can choose this and after nine months all of our content becomes creative commons
licensed so free for everyone to share. So we want to make a magazine actually gives back in this
part of the community and not just making money by selling things to people. What was your recent
to found a new magazine? I mean magazines it's not a growing market at the moment and
everything goes digital. It's not a growing market but I think the bad days are over yeah.
Print magazines did suffer quite a big slump in the 2000s because a lot of people get information
off the internet so we're different. We don't have a big news section for instance because obviously
magazines are quite old by the time they get to people's hands so we don't focus on things
like news. We have a lot of tutorials written by experts and the well researched and so yeah
we see the magazine as many books that come out regularly so projects people to do and things
like that. They're sort of slightly different approach to it. So what issue are you up to at the
moment then? I'm Benfield. We've just sent issue 9 to the printers so that should be out in
a couple of weeks. Ah, issue 9. So you say all your content become available? Do you say creative
comments after nine months? So the first issue will be fairly soon. Yes, I don't know for top
my head but it's something to look forward to. Yeah, yeah. We'll be released pretty soon.
And how's the so that's nine months? Your initial funding you say $120,000?
Was that for the first, did you plan that out for a lot like the first year or is it?
Basically the problem with the magazine industry is all about cash flow because it takes
a whole huge amount of time to get the money back from the magazine from news agents. You can take
nine months to a year. Oh really? Yeah, particularly if the one sold overseas. So when you start
your magazine that's a huge problem. Once you're running you get the money every month. It's just
for an older issue. So really that money needed to get us through the time until we were starting
to get the money from the news agents. And that's starting to happen now. So we're more or less
great than even moving into a profit. It should be noted as well, our crowd in our crowdfunding
campaign people bought subscriptions. So we sold over 2,000 subscriptions in that crowdfunding campaign
alone. So it gave us the funding, it gave us exposure as well and now people are getting the
magazines. So we can expect to see limits of what's around for years to come. Well, hopefully
yeah, I mean we are in double eight smiths, we are in Sainsbury's, we'll soon be in Tesco.
And it's a noble in America and various ones around the world. Yeah, we're in Australia, New
Zealand, on New Stans. So yeah, there is life in the industry I'd say. Even though it's a niche,
it's a niche within a niche. So one thing about your magazine I read is that you use
proprietary software to produce it. So are there any plans to change this? Well, let's
one part, one part of the production the layout is done in Adobe InDesign because we are all rubbish
at graphics software. And to find someone who's well trained in Scribus and who wants to do that
as a full-time job is difficult. So our art editor uses InDesign. We all use purely free software
to make the magazine to write the articles. I use GIMP to do my screenshots and so forth.
I use BIM. But yeah, Scribus, I think next issue we are looking at doing a section of the magazine
in it. There are some limitations with Scribus, but one of our ideas is to use some of our money
to fund the development of features that we need. So we would like to move towards it. It's a
more complicated job than just suddenly switching. It's part of our workflow, but it is something
we're looking to do long-term. So let's say in like five years or two years or whatever,
you're only free software. Well, it could be sooner than that, but yes, we're going to do this
experiment, aren't we, with? Yeah, I mean, we can't really commit to anything. It's definitely
in terms of moving all over. We are, yeah, we're starting to experiment with it and as we say,
we'll see what we can do. Is that going to be like a bounty type system where you offer a
certain amount of cash for a certain feature? That's the idea. It's not concrete. Yes,
it's an idea. It's an idea we've had. We're going to investigate. See if there's something
missing in Scribus that we really need and then consider funding its development to be our
paying developer to work on it. So then everybody benefits. Yeah, that's great to me. It's
so much a good plan. So I think you guys don't fab work. It's a great magazine. Thank you.
I really like the art direction as well. You know, it's got a solid theme running through it. So
it's, you know, the articles are good. It's, you know, it's all good. It's good stuff. If you've
not, you know, if the listeners have not got a subscription, they should definitely subscribe.
Thank you. Shop.linuxvoice.com. And listen to our podcast as well. We've got a podcast
about it. It's, yes, linux voice podcast. It's fairly irreverent linux stuff. Just a bit of fun,
really? Yeah, lots of discoveries about beer and, and, and 1980s video games.
That's great stuff. Thanks for talking to us today. Good luck with the magazine. I hope you
continue to do good things. Cheers. Thanks a lot. Thanks guys. This was Benny for Hacker Public Radio.
Thank you for listening. If you try to reach me, I'm on SDF via email, Benny, B-E-N-I at SDF
or on KnewSocial on micro.fract.f.com as Navigil. Okay. Thank you. And goodbye.
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