OSNews
Encyclopedia
OSNews is a computing
news web site with a focus on operating system
s and their related technologies that launched in 1997. The content is managed by a group of editors and the owner. The managing editor of OSNews is Thom Holwerda (joined in 2005). David Adams is a publisher for OSNews, and also contributes regularly. Eugenia Loli-Queru, the former editor-in-chief of OSNews, resigned in June 2005. She took on a more passive role in recent years as senior editor. Adam Scheinberg is the webmaster of the site. He wrote version 3 of the site in 2005, which added user registration, and version 4, a complete and total rewrite of the codebase. Version 2 of OSNews was written by Eugenia in August 2001 when she resurrected the site after long periods of inactivity.
The editors contribute news items and manage the submissions of news bits, articles, editorial comments and reviews that are submitted by readers, in addition to writing original articles. OSNews serves daily 275,000 page views on average (statistics from Oct 2005).
Like other technology news sites such as Slashdot
, it has a free user/subscription model, and allows viewers to add commentary to articles. In 2005, OSNews published version 3 of the website, which includes an all-new commenting engine. Instead of reporting comments to moderators, this system now relies on votes. Readers can vote comments up or down, and readers can set a score threshold, which can eliminate the down-voted comments from view. Late 2007, version 4 was launched which completely overhauled the backend of the website, and was later followed by version 4.1 which added a brand new theme and look to the website.
On February 12th, 2007, OSNews' managing editor Thom Holwerda published the 1.0 version of the OSNews Style Guide. This style guide
is licensed under a Creative Commons
license
so that other websites and/or publications can use and adapt the guide to their liking. OSNews is one of the few of its kind with such a style guide.
In January 2008, OSNews' managing editor Thom Holwerda launched Focus Shift, a webcomic based upon the various news items OSNews carries. The Focus Shift webcomic was updated tri-weekly, until it was discontinued in mid-2008.
Computing
Computing is usually defined as the activity of using and improving computer hardware and software. It is the computer-specific part of information technology...
news web site with a focus on operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
s and their related technologies that launched in 1997. The content is managed by a group of editors and the owner. The managing editor of OSNews is Thom Holwerda (joined in 2005). David Adams is a publisher for OSNews, and also contributes regularly. Eugenia Loli-Queru, the former editor-in-chief of OSNews, resigned in June 2005. She took on a more passive role in recent years as senior editor. Adam Scheinberg is the webmaster of the site. He wrote version 3 of the site in 2005, which added user registration, and version 4, a complete and total rewrite of the codebase. Version 2 of OSNews was written by Eugenia in August 2001 when she resurrected the site after long periods of inactivity.
Function
Besides the main site, OSNews detects hundreds of mobile browsers and handsets and redirects them to a specially formatted cHTML version of the website at mobile.osnews.com. Eugenia Loli-Queru, the author of this script, open sourced it in 2008.The editors contribute news items and manage the submissions of news bits, articles, editorial comments and reviews that are submitted by readers, in addition to writing original articles. OSNews serves daily 275,000 page views on average (statistics from Oct 2005).
Like other technology news sites such as Slashdot
Slashdot
Slashdot is a technology-related news website owned by Geeknet, Inc. The site, which bills itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters", features user-submitted and ‑evaluated current affairs news stories about science- and technology-related topics. Each story has a comments section...
, it has a free user/subscription model, and allows viewers to add commentary to articles. In 2005, OSNews published version 3 of the website, which includes an all-new commenting engine. Instead of reporting comments to moderators, this system now relies on votes. Readers can vote comments up or down, and readers can set a score threshold, which can eliminate the down-voted comments from view. Late 2007, version 4 was launched which completely overhauled the backend of the website, and was later followed by version 4.1 which added a brand new theme and look to the website.
On February 12th, 2007, OSNews' managing editor Thom Holwerda published the 1.0 version of the OSNews Style Guide. This style guide
Style guide
A style guide or style manual is a set of standards for the writing and design of documents, either for general use or for a specific publication, organization or field...
is licensed under a Creative Commons
Creative Commons
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
license
License
The verb license or grant licence means to give permission. The noun license or licence refers to that permission as well as to the document recording that permission.A license may be granted by a party to another party as an element of an agreement...
so that other websites and/or publications can use and adapt the guide to their liking. OSNews is one of the few of its kind with such a style guide.
In January 2008, OSNews' managing editor Thom Holwerda launched Focus Shift, a webcomic based upon the various news items OSNews carries. The Focus Shift webcomic was updated tri-weekly, until it was discontinued in mid-2008.