Packaging progress
by Paul W. Frields
Hi Docs gangstas,
I am steadily making progress toward a packaging solution. Thanks to
Tommy jumping in with XSLT-based solutions, I learned a lot (although
not nearly enough, of course) about how to solve other problems using
the same building blocks. I also -- finally! -- figured out how to
package documentation for KDE's khelpcenter, and believe me, it's not
self-evident. Or rather, the end-state is comprehensible, but the
procedure for getting there cleanly is not. In any case, that's solved
too.
Also, the "fedora-doc-common" RPM is just about ready for rollout and
will contain (hopefully) everything required for people not operating
out of CVS to build docs. Mostly this just involves including our XSL
snippets, entities, custom scripts, and so forth. This is not to say
that by installing this RPM people will be able to just happily build
away, but it puts that goal within reach.
Since the fedora-doc-* stuff will probably live in Fedora Extras, and
because that is a rolling repository, it is much easier for us to work
on this in phases. Phase One goals are for our currently available
documents to be installable by an end user using yum, and that those
documents should show up prominently in each of the locations a user
might expect:
1. Launching "Desktop -> Help" for GNOME or KDE
2. Launching "Documentation -> [title]"
I don't know yet what Phase Two entails, but some goals might include:
1. Nice Python scripts for creating new XML document templates
2. " " " for building DRAFT-marked documents?
Some items I am still in the process of solving, by which I mean I
should be able to finish them for Phase One:
- The rpm-info.dtd needs some lovin':
- Packages should not get separate versions, too confusing
- Docs should not get releases, also confusing
- Figure out a way to condense generic person entries for use as
authors, editors, translators, and/or packagers? Alternately, remove
those not needed -- e.g. packagers only need full name and email,
authors, editors and translators need "component" names, and people
performing revisions only need initials. Some reference to dbpoolx.mod
shows this shouldn't be too hard to do.
- Provide functionality to automatically sort "doc" or "rpm" revisions.
Because RPM is particular about things like date formats in %changelog
entries, we may need to "encourage" proper formatting using the DTD. We
already have a *strong* hint there in the attributes Tommy provided, but
I don't think there's anything built in to a DTD to check for ordering;
I believe, however, that XSLT can sort. Anything we can do to
bulletproof the process is probably good. If it proves too cumbersome
to complete RSN, I'll push this off until Phase Two.
That's it from my neck of the woods. Hope everyone is enjoying the
holidays. The holiday break and the patience of my ever-lovin' wife are
the main reason I've been able to work on this stuff for the last few
days. Best to all, and here's to a Happy New Year!
--
Paul W. Frields, RHCE http://paul.frields.org/
gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
Fedora Documentation Project: http://fedora.redhat.com/projects/docs/
17 years, 11 months
OpenOffice stylesheets
by Tommy Reynolds
Greetings,
If memory serves me correctly, and there's always a first time,
someone looked into using OpenOffice to output DocBook. Doesn't this
need a stylesheet or something? I thouht it may be time to revisit
this.
Cheers
17 years, 11 months
Self Introduction: Martin Joseph Brej
by Martin Joseph Brej
1. Full legal name: Martin Joseph Brej
* City, Country, Timezone: Monterey, California, USA (Pacific
Time)
* Profession: Software Consulting Manager
* Company: International Business Machines Corporation
* My goals in the Fedora Project: I enjoy using Fedora as a
platform for my home personal computing needs and would very
much like to help others become open source users as well--to
help take the technology mainstream. I am not a coder, but do
consider myself to be a power-user with strong familiarity with
software development processes. I am a liberal arts major with
a passion for explaining technology to others.
* What do you want to write about? I am open to writing
for any area within Fedora that most needs the help. My
personal experience is that many programs are not
documented or have documentation that is "rough and
ready". I could help cover areas no one else currently
is or supplement areas which are currently documented
but in need of some polishing.
* What other documentation do you want to see published?
I have often looked at the documentation to get the
answer to a configuration setting or to solve a problem
on my own and found that it did not answer my question.
* Do you want to edit for grammar/writing and/or technical
accuracy? I am happy to edit for grammar/"read-ability"
and technical accuracy if that is where I can best
contribute immediately. I am not a professional writer,
so that may be a good way for me to break in as a
documentation contributor for Fedora.
* Anything else special? I am an enthusiastic guy--what I
may lack in experience, I know I will make up for in
dedication and enthusiasm. Between work and family
life, I do not have a ton of free time, but will commit
realistically to deliverables and deadlines and deliver
high quality work. My goal will be to write the doc
that I wish were there when I needed to use it.
* Historical qualifications
* What other projects or writing have you worked on in the
past? I have been on numerous software implementation
projects as a programmer, designer, architect and
project manager over my 17 years in the industry. I
have written many presentations for customers and some
training materials and documentation for the systems
delivered. I have never been a documentation
professional, however.
* What level and type of computer skills do you have? I
would label myself a "power-user". I like to diddle
around and see how things work and learn the advanced
configuration options, etc. It have been many years
since I have been at the code level. I have played
around recently with learning Java and scripting on the
side, but have no serious programming skills to speak of
anymore.
* What other skills do you have that might be applicable?
User interface design, other so-called soft skills
(people skills), programming, etc. I am a very
organized worker--part of my project management
background, so over time, that may be an area that I can
contribute as well.
* What makes you an excellent match for the project? I
spend most of my free time using Fedora and am
passionate about building great software that is useful
to others (and ideally, easy to use!) I think I express
myself clearly and would like to contribute to Fedora
instead of just consuming other people's excellent work
without giving anything back.
* GPG KEYID and fingerprint
* pub 1024D/14A0CF3B 2005-12-02 [expires: 2006-12-02]
* Key fingerprint = 202E 9B0A 2D20 C9B6 D703 1504
51D1 E1E8 14A0 CF3B
* uid Martin Joseph Brej (Marty)
<mjbrej(a)sbcglobal.net>
* sub 1024g/273B7E4A 2005-12-02 [expires: 2006-12-02]
---------------------------------------
Martin Joseph Brej
326 Monroe Street
Monterey, CA 93940-2218
831-375-2735 h
831-521-3925 m
mjbrej(a)sbcglobal.net e
martinbrej (Yahoo!) im
Ask me about getting a personal digital certificate.
17 years, 11 months
Docs/Beats/Samba page update
by Chris Lennert
Anyone mind if I update the Docs/Beats/Samba relnote page? In diving into some
of the Docs/Beats/ServerTools BZ items, it appears that the Samba browsing
warning is no longer warranted. Since the beat is uncovered, I don't mind
updating the page to at least reflect this (welcome) change for FC5.
-- Chris
17 years, 11 months
[Fwd: Fedora Core 5 Test 2 slipping until January 16]
by Karsten Wade
My friends, FYI, information below about the FC5 test2 schedule slip.
Sorry to all about the delay from the documentation side. We missed our
freeze last week. Fortunately, we now have more time to fix the
problems in our process and make our promise next time!
I am updating our documentation schedule this evening to reflect these
new dates.
Thanks - Karsten
-------- Forwarded Message --------
From: Jesse Keating <jkeating(a)redhat.com>
Reply-To: For testers of Fedora Core development releases <fedora-test-
list(a)redhat.com>
To: List for Fedora Package Maintainers <fedora-maintainers(a)redhat.com>,
For testers of Fedora Core development releases <fedora-test-
list(a)redhat.com>, fedora-devel-list(a)redhat.com
Subject: Fedora Core 5 Test 2 slipping until January 16
Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2005 09:14:42 -0800
<to be sung to the tune of Jingle Bells>
Dashing through the builds
In a one cup holder desk
O're the build errors we go
Swearing all the way!
Phones on dev's desks ring
Making Managers frown
What fun it is to cuss and swear
re-baseing on GCC!
Oh, software sucks,
Software sucks,
Software really sucks!
Oh what fun it is to slip our release for a month!
Software sucks,
Software sucks,
Software really sucks!
Oh, what fun it is to slip our release for a month!
We rebuilt java* once
It wasn't very nice
we rebuilt everything else
to our user's delight!
Broken deps still there
Making testing fun
We really thing we need to test
for another month!
Oh, software sucks,
Software sucks,
Software really sucks!
Oh what fun it is to slip our release for a month!
Oh What Fun It Is To Slip Our Release For A Monnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnth!!!
Ok, it won't be a full month, but due to the recent upgrade of gcc and
the subsequent full rebuild of everything that does (and doesn't,
whoops!) get built with gcc, including java stuff with gcj, and the need
to further test package selection windows in Anaconda,
system-config-packages for upgrades, and the development tree in general
once we settle down the rebuilds, we have decided to delay test2. Here
is a new schedule that we will be working toward:
* Test2 freeze date to 9 January
* Test2 release, 16 January
* Test3 freeze, 6 February
* Test3 release, 13 February
* Final absolute freeze, 6 March
* Release, 15 March
We are going to try very hard to have a stable(ish) tree suitable for
testing over the holidays, so that Test2 will be better for the slip and
keep us in line with getting Test3 and eventually the final release out
in the best shape possible.
Thank you all for your hard work in helping us develop the best
distribution we can!
--
Jesse Keating
Release Engineer: Fedora
--
Karsten Wade, RHCE * Sr. Tech Writer * http://people.redhat.com/kwade/
gpg fingerprint: 2680 DBFD D968 3141 0115 5F1B D992 0E06 AD0E 0C41
Content Services Fedora Documentation Project
http://www.redhat.com/docs http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject
17 years, 11 months
[FYI] Apache FOP 0.90BETA1 Trial
by Tommy Reynolds
Hello, all!
This is a status update. As you probably know, FDP intend to use
Apache FOP to render the PDF versions of our documents. The 0.20.5
version is quite old; furious development is underway.
The Apache FOP team have made available a beta release of their
heavily-rewritten product. You can find out more from their
http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/relnotes.html
web site. I tried it out against the CVS versions of the Fedora
Release Notes and thought you might like to see the results. You can
find the English and Italian versions here:
http://www.megacoder.com/nobots/RELEASE-NOTES-en.pdf
http://www.megacoder.com/nobots/RELEASE-NOTES-it.pdf
The Japanese version built, but the wrong font was used, so everything
was a '#' character. The Russian version aborted.
I think they look remarkably good, given that I used the original,
mostly-generic PDF stylesheets.
I haven't tried to compile this using GCJ; that's out of my range.
Perhaps one of you might make one attempt, just to see what happens.
As Karsten mentioned earlier, we should be getting some help with the
graphics rendering component -- so we can avoid the closed-source
libraries FOP uses. However, if we stick with .JPG and .EPS input
graphics, the built-in FOP support should be quite good enough. We
just need to get the GCJ compile going... Still, I prefer .PNG image
files and am looking forward to the "correct" solution.
Cheers
17 years, 11 months
Self-Introduction: Chris Lennert
by Chris Lennert
Full Name: Chris Lennert
Location: Greenville, SC, USA (Eastern Standard Time)
Profession: Network Administrator and developer
Company: Woodward Governor Company
Goals
1. What do you want to write about?
I would be willing to cover the ServerTools beat. In addition, if the
primary authors permit, I would be interested in contributing to the
DesktopUserGuide and the Hardening Tutorial.
2. What other documentation do you want to see published?
A Fedora-specific remote access tutorial that covers setting up VPN tunnels
to several of the major firewall distros/products and which would serve as a
starting point for folks looking to connect to corporate networks. Unless I am
mistaken, I don't believe one exists.
3. Do you want to edit for grammar/writing and/or technical accuracy?
As a former high school science teacher, I would be happy to correct
grammar, "wordsmith" documents, and verify content.
4. Anything else special?
I've been a dedicated consumer of FOSS for many years and have contributed
in smaller ways in the past. Diving into the heart of the Fedora documentation
efforts is one way for me to get off my arse and start contributing in a major way.
Historical Qualifications
1. What other projects or writing have you worked on in the past?
Since my job responsibilities in recent years have included user support, I
have written various end-user-oriented documents. Several of these have been
DocBook-based HTMLHelp documents (CHM's) for my predominantly Windows-based users.
2. What level and type of computer skills do you possess?
I would characterize my level of skill as broad with moderate depth. I tend
to prefer development-oriented tasks, but since my current employment also
requires network/system administration and user support, I don't feel I qualify
for the lofty title of "developer".
Nevertheless, I am very comfortable with Java, XHTML/CSS, XSLT, DocBook
markup and many of the Apache Java libraries. I have used most of the major
Linux and BSD distributions though I tend to stay close to the Red Hat world. I
have experience (implementation, at the least) with many of the most luminary
FOSS applications.
3. What other skills do you have that might be applicable? User interface
design, other so-called soft skills (people skills), programming, etc.
I like to think of myself as an All-Around Nice Guy(TM). :)
4. What makes you an excellent match for the project?
* Broad level of experience covering network & system administration, user
support, and software development.
* Java development experience
* Experience with DocBook-related toolchains (mostly Ant-, Saxon- and Apache
FOP-based) and XSL customization
GPG KEYID and Fingerprint
KEYID: DE8B9506
[calennert@rutherford ~]$ gpg --fingerprint DE8B9506
pub 1024D/DE8B9506 2005-12-09 [expires: 2007-12-09]
Key fingerprint = E199 9CAD 955D 5CB7 ADB3 B05F EACC ACF9 DE8B 9506
uid Christopher Lennert <calennert(a)gmail.com>
sub 2048g/6741E0E0 2005-12-09 [expires: 2007-12-09]
17 years, 11 months
freenode
by Patrick W. Barnes
Over the last 20 hours, freenode has been trying to deal with a massive
botnet attack. Over the course of that time, they removed the
irc.freenode.net server to chat.freenode.net. Service has now been
restored to irc.freenode.net, but freenode is considering a permanent
transition to chat.freenode.net. In order to prepare for whatever
changes freenode may make, I have adjusted references to
irc.freenode.net on the wiki to point at the freenode website
(http://freenode.net/) instead. For more information, or if you have
trouble connecting to freenode, please see the news on their website at
http://freenode.net/news.shtml
I would encourage anyone who maintains websites or documentation to
update their information in a similar manner. While we can expect
irc.freeenode.net to remain operational for a long time to come,
pointing to freenode's website rather than a server directly avoids
dependency upon that server, and users will likely experience better
service by visiting freenode's site and selecting a server that is
geographically close to their location.
--
Patrick "The N-Man" Barnes
nman64(a)n-man.com
http://www.n-man.com/
--
Have I been helpful? Rate my assistance! http://rate.affero.net/nman64/
17 years, 12 months
[ANN] Wiki is about to freeze for trans for test2, help needed for conversion
by Karsten Wade
I've been heads down on other projects and forgot to ride the schedule
for the relnotes. D'oh! Mea culpa.
We are two days late for freeze for translation, so have missed our
agreed upon scheduling.
We need to freeze soonest for test2 for trans.
Freeze begins at 08:00 UTC 15 December. This gives the West Coast of
the US, i.e., me, time to be useful.
Is there anyone interested in helping with the conversion from MoinMoin
to our XML for relnotes? The first step is automated (thanks Patrick!),
so we get well-formed XML from fp.org/Docs/Beats.
I need help with diffing and merging. I've been doing visual diffs,
i.e., using my eyes, but I reckon that xmldiff or something similar
could be really useful. I'll be working tonight, -0800 UTC (US West
Coast) from before and after the 08:00 UTC freeze. I'll certainly be
working on it by 21:00 PST/05:00 UTC.
I also think an XML diff is useful for the translators. We need to work
on getting that within our toolchain.
I apologize to our friends in translation. Hopefully the content is not
going to change that much, perhaps 10% churn and 15% added?
Once I have a snapshot of the Wiki, at a few minutes after 08:00 UTC,
I'll unfreeze the Wiki for changes.
The Wiki is snapshot[1] again on 21 December at Midnight UTC for the
Web-only release of the updated relnotes. That content is available for
translation from CVS starting on 22 December by announcement to f-trans-
list.
Thanks - Karsten
[1] That's right, I verbified that sucker.
--
Karsten Wade, RHCE * Sr. Tech Writer * http://people.redhat.com/kwade/
gpg fingerprint: 2680 DBFD D968 3141 0115 5F1B D992 0E06 AD0E 0C41
Content Services Fedora Documentation Project
http://www.redhat.com/docs http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject
17 years, 12 months
