I let my subscription lapse a while ago due to Petreley's divisive, blow-hard "opinion" pieces. After a discussion with a colleague prompted me to dig more, I found this. I'll be re-subscribing soon. I've missed LJ, but won't be missing him.

We're reading over the comments here and would love to get some more specific feedback about what people would like to see in place of /var/opinion if not EOF. Let us know... we'd love the feedback.

My personal two cents:
I like the back page leaving us with something thought-provoking. Stirring the pot a little isn't a bad thing - it at minimum enters us (the community) in to a deeper conversation. As readers, how do you feel about this?

Carlie Fairchild
Publisher

Carlie Fairchild is the publisher of Linux Journal.

We all had fun while Nicholas Petreley bashed Microsoft and held Sun/Java's feet to the fire, when it came to open source.

Guess what? Microsoft is still Microsoft, but now Sun/Java is going open source crazy. I'm sure that Petreley's commentary wasn't the deciding factor but that it helped rally people.

Did you also hear all the heaping praise for Java 6? I think that proves that he does have balance.

Everyone was glad when he supported their favorite application, distribution, etc. However, when it comes to ranting against something we might like, we get personally offended. Well, why?

Holding GNOME's feet to the fire, for example, over usability issues may have been over-the-top, but it was effective. I'm sure that if he had reviewed KDE 4.0.0's release at the Journal, he would have let us known about that, too.

Virtually every time I go to Slashdot, Digg, Reddit, whatever, I see people posting their own rants. If we really don't like Petreley's commentary, then why does the community feel free to give their own commentary, at the drop of a hat.

You know what? GNOME vs. KDE harms the community, as do Debian/Ubuntu vs. RedHat vs. Gentoo vs. SuSE vs. Slackware vs. whatever-flavor-of-the-month. I don't believe that supporting everything Linux-related is healthy for its long-term growth.

In fact, the idea, "Can't everyone just get along" is what is keeping Linux from dominating the desktop and data center, today. Why do we have at least two of everything?!?!?

It's time to pick from the cream of the crop, pair down, and standardize more, even if we are critical of volunteer effort. (Yes, I hate that part, too, since many in the open source community pour their heart and soul into applications we enjoy, for free. Being critical seems mean to a lot of good people, but if their software is deficient, perhaps a rant like his can be a catalyst for positive change).

Do I agree with everything Nicholas Petreley? Nope. I actually wish he had toned down a couple of rant articles, myself. However, I think he provided journalistic balance, compared to the "hey, if it's Linux, it's gotta be good" editors of the past.

As for KDE vs. GNOME, I'm a KDE fan. There, I said it. Petreley didn't sway me that way, however, GNOME did.

I'm one who will miss Nicholas Petreley.