The Status Of The Perl Journal

A number of people have been wondering what's going to happen to TPJ ^[?] in light of Earthweb's (the owner of TPJ) sale of most of its properties to Internet.com. Many rumours have been flying around and Jon Orwant has decided to clear things. I've put his status update below.

From Jon Orwant:

"January 2, 2001

Some folks have been asking me about the status of The Perl Journal #20, and prospective authors have been asking me about deadlines for future issues. The answers: TPJ #20 is in press and ready to print, but EarthWeb (the owner of TPJ) has told the printer to stop the presses until further notice. I am currently responding to proposals sent to me with approximately "I don't know if there's going to be another issue, but when I do I'll respond to your proposal."

Since the future of the magazine is in doubt, I can't in good conscience greenlight proposals; I will not encourage an author to spend weeks writing an article when I know that it might never be printed. So I've told people who've asked what I know about the current situation: while EarthWeb has sold many of its properties to internet.com so that it can focus on "career services", it has not sold TPJ. However, EarthWeb has also made it clear that they don't want to publish TPJ any more.

This story has started to leak out to the Perl community and has already mutated a bit in not-quite-correct directions, so I wanted to write this note to set the record straight. Or as straight as I can, given what little I know about EarthWeb's decisions.

While TPJ's future is very much up in the air, people shouldn't take this as any indicator about Perl itself. TPJ was doing just fine back when I ran it, there's no shortage of content out there, and the magazine could easily go bimonthly and then monthly -- indeed, when EarthWeb acquired TPJ I had thought that was the plan. I still enjoy the editing, the authors enjoy the writing, and the designers enjoy the designing. What happens now is up to EarthWeb. And no, I'm not suggesting that people bombard them with e-mail. Heck, they just laid off 100 people, so I'm not even sure who to bombard. Eventually there will be some resolution, and when there is I'll write again to let everyone know.

As of December 27th, this matter is now in the courts, and so I have to adopt the "just the facts" tone of this letter without portraying my opinions. Someday I'll be able to talk more about what is happening in these strange days; until then, you'll have to conjure up your own adjectives on my behalf.

Cheers,

Jon Orwant "

what about Slashdot?

i know this seems like an unlikely possibility, but why could this not happen to slashdot? what would be done about it? does taco have a gameplan if VA goes belly-up?

however remote this seems now, don't discount it. murphy's law.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Tim?

I love TPJ.

It's in good editorial hands, and the community produces some great material for it. I think it's a great fit for the Perl community [such little as I've seen of it].

So, if EarthWeb doesn't want it, perhaps O'Reilly would like to break into periodical publishing. C'mon, Tim, you know you want to!

oh no it's Byte all over again..

Damn it, not another fine magazine getting tossed around. Usually that's the first step before it's put to death. What's next, Dr. Dobbs? Linux Journal?

What happens to these magazines? Why can't the people and articles just get regrouped under another name or something? For some reason I thought Orwant actually had the rights to TPJ and such. What's with the court case?

Oh well, just venting. I could never understand why when people are willing to pay for a magazine (especially one like TPJ, they couldn't get THAT much from advertising) why the magazine can be killed.

And just like Byte, I get the news RIGHT AFTER renewing my subscription.

I hope TPJ is back in full effect (ON PAPER please, no TPJ.com for me) and this is all just publisher silliness.

arghhh

The cluelessness of pointy haired bosses and other corporate bean counter types never ceases to amaze me.

On the other hand, this is part of the problem when a good property is in the hands of someone who doesn't know what to do with it.

Internet.com would be an excellent place for TPJ. Unfotunately, it looks like Earthweb decided to canniablize the resource, fools that they are.

The EarthWeb press release is HERE [corporate-ir.net]

The essential information in part includes

"The Earthweb IT and Internet professional content assets that internet.com is acquiring are among the best properties available on the Web. They will be a great fit for us and we will be able to greatly leverage these properties in terms of readership and revenue opportunities. We also look forward to potentially establishing other strategic initiatives with dice.com in the coming year," stated internet.com Chairman and CEO Alan M. Meckler.

In addition to earthweb.com, the websites acquired by internet.com include:

Developer.com (www.developer.com), Datamation (www.datamation.com), CrossNodes (www.crossnodes.com),SysOpt.com (www.sysopt.com), ERP Hub (www.erphub.com), Open Source IT (www.opensourceit.com), Javascripts.com (www.javascripts.com), JARS.com (www.jars.com), HTML Goodies (www.htmlgoodies.com), Gamelan (www.gamelan.com), CodeGuru.com www.codeguru.com), Intranet Journal (www.intranetjournal.com), CIN (http://www.cin.earthweb.com/) and EarthWeb Direct (www.earthwebdirect.com).

So it looks like The Perl Journal is just being phased out despite being a highly valued professional resource.

of course, this is completely speculative on my part.

More Earthweb press releases located here [corporate-ir.net] including a real audio broadcast of the announcement, which might be interesting.

Nice

TPJ's future is very much up in the air

Someday I'll be able to talk more about what is happening in these strange days; until then, you'll have to conjure up your own adjectives on my behalf.

Well that certainly answered all of my questions.
Thank god we got all that cleared up.
--Shoeboy

Re:"The matter is in the courts", translated

That's not accurate, Bruce. I have never owned any stock in EarthWeb.

Jon Orwant