A Debian column on OMG! Ubuntu!

My name is Benjamin and I'm a co-owner of Ohso[1], a company that runs a number of websites/blogs, including OMG! Ubuntu![2] and Ubuntu Gamer[3]. This email will be regarding OMG! Ubuntu! the most, so I'll explain briefly what we do.

OMG! Ubuntu! is a popular blog for the Ubuntu user. We have been around for just on two years, and in the last six months have grown exponentially. We have a very large reader base (around 40,000) with many Facebook and Twitter fans/followers.�

We post up to 10 articles a day, everything from breaking news, updates to the next Ubuntu release development branch, interviews with people within the Free Software community (recently we interviewed Linus Torvalds[4], for example) as well as regular competitions and editorials from a wide range of writers.

OMG! Ubuntu! generally gets a lot more page views than Planet Ubuntu, and is the primary source of news for most of the Ubuntu community as well as many Canonical employees.

Anyway, enough about us. While I was attending Linux.conf.au 2011 in Brisbane a couple of weeks ago, I bumped into the Debian leader, Stefano Zacchiroli who had made the long trip from Paris. We went out for dinner and discussed the possibility of a Debian column on OMG! Ubuntu!

I would like to think that Debian is interested in maintaining a good relationship with their downstream distributions, Ubuntu being one of the largest and influential. What better way to communicate with the Ubuntu community than to have a regular Debian column on our site?

I think an arrangement like this could be highly beneficial to both OMG! Ubuntu! and the Debian Project.�

We are always looking to expand our variety of content. Recently we have taken on board a writer from the Drupal community and another from the Banshee Project. All of these communities have a large influence on Ubuntu users, and it's important that we cover as much as we can to give the reader the best experience

For Debian, I think it could be an excellent opportunity to share Debian's point of view downstream to the Ubuntu community, and I think it would also do a great job of bringing more exposure to the Debian Project and any other incentives one might wish to write about.

Being based on Debian, Ubuntu certainly has a lot to credit Debian for - and I think it is important we give Debian the necessary attention.

Myself and the other writers don't know enough about the Debian Project to report too much on it ourselves, we wouldn't want to get any facts wrong, so we simply avoid talking about Debian which I think is a great shame.

If we could have one or more talented writers from the Debian Project to contribute to a column on the site, I think that would be excellent.

Because Ohso is a for-profit company, and Debian is a non-profit organization, I think it would be best for us to contribute back to Debian for the efforts of any Debian writers. Stefano suggested the best way to do this would be for us to donate money to the project, which we would absolutely love to do.

I look forward to hearing back your opinions on this idea, and can't wait to strengthen our relationship. You guys are doing an amazing job and judging from the Debian people I met at LCA, you're a lovely bunch of folk. Keep up the good work!