I was a founder, with Bob Albrecht, of the People's Computer Company and was the creator of Dr. Dobb's Journal. It is very sad to learn of the "sunset" of DDJ. I take some solace that DDJ survived longer than most of the other serious personal computing journals and continues to be relevant today. I am proud of the impact DDJ and PCC have had on our society. I am grateful for the contributions of the many DDJ authors and editors. Jim Warren, the first DDJ editor deserves special recognition, as does Bob Albrecht whose vision and insight guided PCC.
It's possible to keep Dr. Dobbs alive by factory resetting back to the startup mode. Announce here some share in DDJ to an additional tech cofounder with some ideas to pivot the Dr. Dobbs. Apply to YC.
Here's my offer: I'll return DDJ into a blogger community focused on newer tech (Ruby/JS/Python/Rust/Go/Closure/Scala) with the same writing pleasure to "medium" or "svbtle". A lot of 20years old would love to write under the brand of DDJ. I ask 20% share only and as a cofounder have Andrew.
The brand (DDJ) should have no bearing on such a site's popularity past it's initial launch. Indeed, to associate oneself with such a brand is to guarantee a level of quality of journalism that, if not met, diminishes the DDJ brand, as well as the startup. You'd best be willing to live up to this standard before trying to co-opt the DDJ brand.
I'd say that, in all honesty, you shouldn't need the DDJ brand to achieve what you're suggesting. Just start a "blogger community focused on newer tech (Ruby/JS/Python/Rust/Go/Closure/Scala) with the same writing pleasure to "medium" or "svbtle"" and see how it goes.
Don't try to ride on the bootstraps of a decades old brand that can thankfully still retire unblemished. A rarity in these times.
UBM would have to want to sell it. I'd be surprised if they didn't try that already. But could certainly win themselves some major points with the community they are selling other stuff too. I know someone there, will see if they know anything.
What you are prescribing is just a painkiller (solving the problem with low paid interns), the disease remains: how to survive as a content producer. Solving this would change the face of internet. This could be the web 3.0.
I think its fair to say you contributed to the construction of a culturally significant form of contemporary literature, whose affects can be traced throughout modern humanity. DDJ was the driving force behind a lot of free thought, about thought, and about how to apply thought to machines, and thus the universe, and for this fact I thank you, also, for the impact DDJ had on my life over decades of computing.
Dennis Allison