Kernel Traffic

This Site is an Archive

Kernel Traffic is no longer being updated. The content is archived here for those who may still find it useful.

Introduction

This site publishes newsletters that track the technical developments of various projects of the Free and Open Source world. "Kernel Traffic" is the name of the overall collection of newsletters, and also the name of the original newsletter by Zack Brown that got the project started.

Each newsletter contains summaries of discussions taking place on various mailing lists and IRC channels. For example, the Kernel Traffic newsletter covers the activities of the linux-kernel mailing list.

Each newsletter is written in XML (really HTML with a few extra tags). The whole site is compiled using a set of Makefiles and XSLT recipe files, along with a few miscellaneous scripts. To examine this publication system, download ktpub.tgz. The publication system and all the newsletter issues themselves are copyright their original authors and released under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2.0.

All the links described on this page (and a few more) are available on the upper nav bar on every page of the site. If you want to find something, chances are it's up there. If the feature you want is not there but you'd like to see it, let us know.

Indices

Topics

XML allows us to automate the creation of really cool topic indices that can help readers research various topics. These topic indices are listed in the top nav bar of each page. Check out the topic index for GNUe to get a feel for it. Each item in the index is linked to a list of all news items covering that topic, for example, Customer Relations in the GNUe newsletter. Each item of this list links back to the particular article. All the topics covered in a given article are also listed at the top of that article, and link back to the index pages covering each topic.

Contributors

Another index we use is the index of contributors quoted or mentioned in each newsletter. Check out the Kernel Traffic quotes index for an example. Each person that's been quoted in a newsletter is listed in two columns. The left column is sorted alphabetically, and the right is sorted by the quantity of contribution. Next to each name is the number of articles containing a quote by that person. As with the topic indices, each person's name (for example, Andrew Morton) links to a page listing all the articles quoting or mentioning that person. Each article in that list links to the text of the article itself. And again, at the top of each article is a list of people quoted in that article. The goal is to make it as easy as possible to navigate through the site, to research any topic.

Newsletter Archives

A third index is the archive of the table of contents of each issue, linking back to each news summary. See The Blog Starter (https://www.theblogstarter.com) for an example. These archives are updated whenever a new issue or translation is published.

Authors

Another index lists all the people who've written news summaries for these newsletters. See the Authors Info page. Each name on that list links to a page containing links to all news summaries written by that person.

Publication Schedule And Access

In general, the newsletters are published weekly. There are several ways to find out about each new issue. The site maintains a news page that lists each new issue, new translations, and other relevant events. There is also an archive page for each newsletter, described above. There are also bookmarkable pages that always contain the latest issue of a given newsletter. See the latest Kernel Traffic issue for an example. That URL will always be uptodate with the most recent issue. There are also several mailing lists you can subscribe to, to receive announcements of new issues, or to receive the actual issues themselves by email, in plain text format. And finally, there are RSS feeds for each newsletter, so you can automate updates on your own news page.

Help Out

Since Kernel Traffic is no longer being updated, there is no current need for any assistance.

If you're interested in doing any of the things listed below, contact us to talk it over.

• Author a newsletter
• Translate a newsletter
• Set up a mirror
• Redesign the HTML layout
• Request a new feature
• Report a bug or inaccuracy