Introduction, Documenting Workstation

[Pete Travis]

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On 03/28/2014 06:38 AM, Pete Travis wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I'm acquainted with many of you already, but an introduction seems
> fitting anyway. I've been involved with the project for a few years now,
> primarily on the Docs team but also some light packaging and lately
> light infrastructure things. I live in Montana, US, where the population
> density is almost as low as the temperature. I work for a small
> government agency doing user and systems support.
>
> Why should you care?  Well, the Docs team reached a decision this last
> weekend to proactively work with the Product WGs to assess documentation
> needs.  I volunteered to liaison with the Workstation team.  As we
> approach the release cycle, I'd like everyone to keep documentation in
> mind and the discussion open about not only implementation, but how to
> represent that implementation to the users. An undocumented feature
> isn't featured :)
>
> I'm looking forward to working with everyone, perhaps saying hello at
> the next meeting - there are meetings, right? - and developing a
> presentation of the Workstation Product that shows off the capabilities
> and character of your work.
>
>
>

So, I still intend to do this. I've seen quite a bit of discussion on
target audience, high level goals, and the like, but only recently have
I seen actual implementation details like package lists - and the
discussions seem to trail off before there a conclusion is drawn.

I'd really like to showcase the Desktop team's work in the Release
Notes. The Cloud group has a bunch of trac tickets they've been pushing
through; the Server group has been communicating profusely on their
list.  Both have a very clear divergence from the current user experience.

While I've tried to keep pace with Workstation, I haven't developed a
picture of it as a divergent product as compared to the desktop spin. 
The changes I *have* noticed do look interesting for developers; various
libraries installed by default, devassist, SCLs - but the experience
changes in Cloud and especially Server are so dramatic that I can't help
but think I'm missing something with workstation.   To me, the Technical
Spec and tasklist read like "We think GNOME is the ideal environment for
developers, so the GNOME Desktop is Fedora's Developer Workstation. Oh,
and there are other developer focused packages there so you don't have
to install them later."

I'm not trying to be disparaging, trivialize your efforts, or anything
like that.  Part of writing documentation is to put yourself in the
mindset of the end user, and try to answer the questions they come up
with.  A lot people are going to be very excited about Workstation, and
when they sit down in front of their computer, they'll want to know what
makes Fedora Workstation special.

I *sincerely don't know* what to tell our users about your product,
other than going over the feature list GNOME, and listing out the extra
packages that come with it. Please, help me out here, speak up about how
you want Fedora Workstation to be documented.

- -- 
- -- Pete Travis
 - Fedora Docs Project Leader
 - 'randomuser' on freenode
 - immanetize at fedoraproject.org
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