Editorial steering guidelines for Freedom matters

                    Amol Hatwar (amol@hatwar.org)



Aim:
To establish a news and discussion portal on Free Software with the focus in Asia. Also make it the most widely consulted online magazine and news portal by First quarter 2004 (Q1'04)


Audience:
Every magazine must focus on a target audience to be successful, and this audience must be the masses to make maximum impact and not the average or above average GNU/Linux programmer. The audience may be:
          1. Free Software Enthusiasts (Students, users, admins)
          2. Professionals in business
          3. Policy makers.
	  4. People interested in Techno-social issues.

<comment>
I share the point RMS has made about 'Content' since i couldnt find better word i am using 'Content' to refer to materials(articles, news etc) that come in the magazine.
</comment>

Content:
The content of the magazine throughout must be easy to read, avoid jargon and make GNU/Linux easy. A slight humorous tone to things will do FM good. Content can and must be sourced internationally as well as locally and must be edited and polished to high standards. To do this, a content procurement team (3-4 members) that stays in touch and coordinates with potential authors is a must.

Guidelines on how to contribute and write must be made so that the authors can ensure quality while putting his work in front of the Editor. This way the editor stays happy too.


Nature of Content:
Having defined the audience, FM must constantly source articles that arouse and keep the audience interested. The content may fall in to the following categories:

       0. Technosocial issues primarily in the field of computing.
       1. How to get daily work done using Free Software
       2. Free Software application in real life.
       3. Information regarding new projects (highlights)
       4. Interviews of 'key' people
       5. Starting Free Software Development (beginner-intermmidiate)


Mobilizing finances:
As the number of users increase, maintaining the site online can drain finances. Also, the website itelf will have to be built, designed and coded professionally. FM also has to see its days in print. Authors must also get compensation. Though a project under FSF India, FM must be able to become financially stable and independent, perhaps even send some funds in FSF's way to encourage and keep software Free.

It most common method of revenue generation is advertisement. Our policy will be to support the advertisement of groups and people who support the policies followed by Free Software Foundation. This may lead to low income or no income from Advertisement. But we should go with the same and appeal to users for contributing. We will slightly higher cover price. We can request colleges, public libraries and other organizations to subscribe to the Magazine.

In the beginning the based on the contents we are able to put on the portal a small news letter of FSF India will be brought out and send to various targeted groups(FSF India will have to take the cost). It should be made into a regular Magazine with in the time frame mentioned above.  


Suggested Departments:
          1. Editorial
          2. Reader's Letters
          3. News
          4. Articles and insights (Political)
          5. Workshops (how to get things done)
          6. Topical Story (Feature, Political and non political)
          7. InBusiness (Free Software in Business)
          8. Code Shop (Programming related)
          9. Impromptu (Humour)


Technical requirements (online version):
          1. FM should have its own domain (possibly .in)
          2. Web application to cordinate efforts of authors, editors and other teams as individuals are geographically distributed (something akin to groupware)
          3. Another Web application that handles readers
          4. Good amounts of server space and bandwidth
          5. Usable and clever design

Licensing of content:
          Content can be FDL or verbatim copying depending on the material:


The action plan will be laid out after the approval of the basic concept given this document. 

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It will be like a mix of First Monday and Linux Gazette (but based on Free Software philosophy). A qualitative difference of Frontline and India Today should exist between Freedom Matters and other 'Linux or GNU/Linux' Magazine(I know it will be very difficult to achive. But we have a model. I still wonder how Frontline is able to come up with indepth articles in every page that too every fortnight.)