Re: what next?

[Karsten Wade]

On Mon, 2006-11-06 at 17:17 +0000, Dimitris Glezos wrote:

>  I believe we should try to organize our docs in a way that they could
> be 
>  combined into one document (Fedora Handbook?). We have talked about this 
>  in the past: this should be developed in a modular way so that each 
>  document (chapter) has an editor and some writers. See a recent 
>  discussion at [1], [2]:
>  
>     [1]: http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=125807
>     [2]: 
>  https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2006-October/msg00081.html 
+1

That has been the goal for about ... 18 months?  Looking at your
outline, we have a large amount of that work done already -
installation, desktop usage, release notes, FAQ.  

I've hesitated at taking on a large project for a single document output
that requires so many people to make it happen.  For the first time in
this project's history, I think we can do it.  It means many of you are
going to need to learn to write in a consistent style using a common
voice and common markup.  But the momentum is here as well as the need,
and obviously we are desiring a single, unified Fedora Handbook. :)

There are still tools we need in place to make this work right (Plone,
PDF toolchain, Wiki <-> XML), but these are just implementation details.

>  The goal should be to ship a new guide with each release that will be
>
>  available in PDF [3]. If we succeed in this, then we will have a 
>  printable manual for Fedora -- something very important IMHO for any 
>  person's bookshelf. 
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/Handbook

Let's work out the structure and other process details/tasks there.

>     [3]:
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/Tools/PDFconversion
>  
>  Having such a goal will give us a vision much greater than "just a doc 
>  on a subpage of our website". I believe that it's importance will be 
>  greater than the sum of the current's docs importance; for example, it 
>  could become something that the FreeMedia program could ship for free 
>  too, or ambassadors hand it (or parts of it) at events and we will have 
>  to have it ready by the release date. 
+1

>  One easy way to handle this would be the wiki, like the Beats with a
>
>  clear hierarchy that has cross-references between chapters. This way, we 
>  could monitor the changes and docs members could "maintain" chapters. If 
>  we go with the wiki-way, we can have people chip in here and there more 
>  easily. 
Yes and no.  Until we have a entirely Wiki front-end to DocBook, there
is some content that we are going to have to work on outside of the
Wiki.  The Installation Guide comes to mind here; converting it to the
Wiki losses much of the semantic markup, and since we'll have to convert
it back out eventually, I don't think it is worth the effort for the
small amount of additional contributions we'd get via the Wiki.

What we could look at doing is a "scratch" conversion, that is, make a
Wiki version of some of the XML content, then do a semi-manual
conversion of the content back into the XML in CVS.

Other content we may choose to have live on the Wiki as the source
content.

>  Some sample contents: 
I moved all this to the DocsProject/Handbook page to collaborate on it.

:) - Karsten

>     * Introduction
>       - The Fedora Project
>         + What is Fedora, FOSS, History
>         + Getting help, Communicating, Participating
>       - Packages
>       - Glossary (jargon-buster)
>     * Fedora Core 7: Tour, Release notes
>     * Installing Fedora Core
>     * Using Fedora's desktop
>     * System administration
>     * Tips and tricks
>     * FAQ
>  
>  And here are some more references:
>  
>     * TLDP guides [4]
>     * Old "Linux Manuals and Documentation" page [5]
>     * Gentoo Linux x86 Handbook [6]
>     * Debian GNU/Linux Desktop Survival Guide [7]
>  
>     [4]: http://tldp.org/guides.html
>     [5]: http://www.estart.co.za/linux_doc.html
>     [6]: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?full=1
>     [7]: http://www.togaware.com/linux/survivor/
>  
>  
>  My 2 cents.
>  
>  -d
>  
>  
>  -- 
>  Dimitris Glezos
>  Jabber ID: glezos(a)jabber.org, PGP: 0xA5A04C3B
>  http://dimitris.glezos.com/
>  
>  "He who gives up functionality for ease of use
>  loses both and deserves neither." (Anonymous)
>  --
>   
-- 
Karsten Wade, RHCE, 108 Editor    ^     Fedora Documentation Project 
 Sr. Developer Relations Mgr.     |  fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject
   quaid.108.redhat.com           |          gpg key: AD0E0C41
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