Hello and thanks for reading!

It's hard to describe how excited I am to be coming on board here as Editor in Chief of Linux Journal.

Some of you may know me from the time I spent as Editor in Chief of LinuxWorld Magazine. I was founding editor there and put a lot of effort into building up that publication. But even while I was there, I always looked at Linux Journal as the best magazine in the Linux space. LJ was my model because it had such a great editorial staff and great writers. LJ had built a reputation over time that I respected and admired, and it always represented the model I was striving for. LJ, to me, was always the magazine I thought we could become if we worked at it long enough. And, other than my own, it was the only other Linux magazine I read regularly.

Don Marti has been an influential and important part of that success. His ground-breaking ideas and initiatives on behalf of the Linux community, to be honest, are a bit legendary. Both the "Burn All GIFs" project and "Windows Refund Day" are great examples of his ideas and leadership--Google them if you're not familiar with them already, they're worth reading up on. Don always has been someone who isn't afraid to stir things up, and that's a tradition I think we'll be continuing here at LJ. His shoes will be hard to fill, and he'll be missed. But, I've been assured that he's not going too far; he'll be staying on here in whatever fashion suits him and as someone I know will be a close advisor.

So now I've been given the opportunity--well, maybe it's better to say, the responsibility--of being Editor in Chief of the magazine I admire. What will I do? To begin with, I'm going to make sure nothing changes too fast. From what I've seen, there's a great team in place here and things are moving pretty smoothly.

Yet, I'm sure that things will change over time. I'll try to bring some new ideas and new energy into the mix, and I'll work to leverage my ideas along with the ideas of all the others involved with the magazine. We'll work as a team, put our heads together and see which ideas float to the top.

Most importantly, however, I'll make sure that we're listening to you, our readers. To me, the best measure of our success is how relevant we are to you and how much you gain from being part of the Linux Journal community.

In the end, to me the most exciting part of being here at LJ is to be a part of the LJ community, because I think that's really what we are--a community. You can find information on Linux everywhere today, but you read Linux Journal because you want to be part of something that's bigger than a mere set of search results. In the days when some are beginning to ask if Linux has "jumped the shark", it's our job to make sure that the Linux, Open Source and Free Software communities have a place they can call their own. I want to make sure that place is Linux Journal.

Until next time, thanks for reading!