I understand that there's a need here, which others have tried to fill and not quite succeeded. One can get news about free software--and as many opinions as you can stomach--hourly from a number of online sites, but few go into depth and none could be called authoritative. A few sites such as First Monday offer intriguing articles of a more formal and academic nature. And several excellent magazines cover Linux, but they're directed at particular subsets of Linux users and don't have the broad mandate of Free Software Magazine. Is there a niche for Mobily's venture?
The first issue provides some nice nuggets. My favorite article is Malcolm D. Spence's checklist for justifying free software: Free software is not just about "no license fees"!.
Chris J. Karr lays out the various options for programming on Mac OS X.
Mobily's own article Creating Free Software Magazine helps explain the magazine's rather generic-looking layout--the formatting is all done through XSLT and requires no manual intervention.
Free Software Magazine releases its articles under licenses that permit reuse: Creative Commons licenses, the GNU Free Documentation License, or "Verbatim Copying Only." It also puts its articles online--particularly valuable for getting its message out to readers in developing countries. But Mobily is looking forward to paid subscribers for their print version so that the magazine can continue--and pay its writers.
Andy Oram is an editor for O'Reilly Media, specializing in Linux and free software books, and a member of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility. His web site is www.praxagora.com/andyo.
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