in reply to TPJ as a supplement to Sys Admin

Note:I'm not affiliated with the past or present TPJ publishers and editors in any way, except that I've been paid with money and subscriptions to write a few articles. ;)

Hey everyone,

I've the author of a couple of articles (Finance::Quote and Finance::Quotelets) that have been published in The Perl Journal. Obvisouly I don't know everything, but I'll explain what I can.

Earthweb (the previous TPJ publishers) didn't want to run with TPJ anymore, for reasons unknown, and handed the torch over to Sys Admin Magazine. Obviously there was much confusion in this process, as changing publishers is far from a straightforward task.

TPJ is now a suppliment to SysAdmin Mag, or you could just as easily say that SysAdmin Mag is a suppliment to TPJ. Those people with a subscription to TPJ will also receive SysAdmin, and vice versa. The small "new issue" is probably because nobody knew how to submit articles during the change-over period. My second article was published because it had missed issue #20, and the draft was handed over with the rest of the rights to TPJ.

The new editors (yes, there are new editors) appear to have their hearts in the right place, and I think that "impeding doom" is quite far from the mark. Companies don't usually pay for the rights to a magazine, put all the back-issues on-line for free, increase the amount they're paying authors, and invest the effort in producing a CD-ROM which will also contain all previous TPJ articles. To me, all that work indicates they think TPJ is going to be great.

There was a period when the future of TPJ looked shakey, but with new owners that's no longer the case. I think if anything we're just seeing a few teething problems.

Anyway, that's really all that I know. I hope that this helps to answer more questions than it raises. ;)

Cheers,
Paul

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Re: TPJ as a supplement to Sys Admin
by merlyn (Sage) on Oct 08, 2001 at 18:26 UTC
    The new editors (yes, there are new editors) appear to have their hearts in the right place, and I think that "impeding doom" is quite far from the mark.
    These are also people that I've worked with for months for SysAdmin magazine, and they've usually treated my columns with a light hand, and understood when I stomped my feet wanting something put back.

    This is sharp contrast to the editors (working for the same empire) on WebTechniques, who seem to be very insistent on removing any personality I put into the column, and introducing their own frequent technical errors by deleting 1 sentence in 5 randomly.

    And at the extreme other pole, the editors of Linux Magazine are fellow hackers, who not only leave every joke (and rant) intact, but have been known to add a paragraph or two from time to time when they have further information. Now that's an editor.

    -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

[reply]
Re: Re: TPJ as a supplement to Sys Admin
by petral (Curate) on Oct 08, 2001 at 18:02 UTC
        and I think that "impeding doom" is quite far from the mark.

    Actually, "impeding doom" is probably the chief occupation of the producers of most magazines. (nice typo :-) )

      p
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Re: Re: TPJ as a supplement to Sys Admin
by blakem (Monsignor) on Oct 08, 2001 at 10:27 UTC
    What is Jon Orwant's role in the new entity?

    -Blake

[reply]
      G'day blakem and fellow monks,

      According to a SysAdmin newsletter which can be found here (and other places), Jon Orwant will continue to be involved as a "Senior Contributing Editor". I'm not good at translating titles into roles, but I believe whichever way you look at it Jon is still involved.

      Cheers,
      Paul

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