Introduction

[Mayank Sharma]

Hello,

I am Mayank Sharma, a freelance technical writer in New Delhi, India. I helped launch
India's first magazine on Open Source -- LINUX For You. Currently am freelancing for
OSTG (NewsForge, Linux.com, etc) and occasionally write for Linux Journal and
OpenOffice.org as well. I am one of the silent subscribers of the list, but hope to change
that status with this email.

While working on an article on SELinux, I bumped into Karsten at #selinux. After a few
hours we were discussing about the fedora docs, Karsten laying down the project's need
for authors. Due to time considerations I can't (yet) author a doc, but I did
volunteer to maintain the existing stock. 

Karsten thinks the Installation Guide would need multiple maintainers. So here I am ready
to share the burden with Stuart.

This (http://fedora.redhat.com/projects/docs/) has been read and understod. 

Awaiting orders!

!
Mayank
geekybodhi.net

[Rahul Sundaram]

--- Mayank Sharma <geekybodhi(a)rediffmail.com&gt; wrote:

>  Hello,
>  
>  I am Mayank Sharma, a freelance technical writer in
>  New Delhi, India. I helped launch India's first
>  magazine on Open Source -- LINUX For You. 
as a fellow freelance writer for Linux for you, I
welcome you to the list!



=====
Regards
Rahul Sundaram


		
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[Karsten Wade]

On Sun, 2005-01-23 at 22:04 +0000, Mayank Sharma wrote:
>  Hello,
>  
>  I am Mayank Sharma, a freelance technical writer in New Delhi, India.
>  I helped launch India's first magazine on Open Source -- LINUX For
>  You. Currently am freelancing for OSTG (NewsForge, Linux.com, etc) and
>  occasionally write for Linux Journal and OpenOffice.org as well. I am
>  one of the silent subscribers of the list, but hope to change that
>  status with this email. 
Welcome!

>  While working on an article on SELinux, I bumped into Karsten at
>  #selinux. After a few hours we were discussing about the fedora docs,
>  Karsten laying down the project's need for authors. Due to time
>  considerations I can't (yet) author a doc, but I did volunteer to
>  maintain the existing stock. 
>  
>  Karsten thinks the Installation Guide would need multiple maintainers.
>  So here I am ready to share the burden with Stuart. 
And now is when I should explain myself properly. :)

Seeing the tremendous effort that Stuart has put into the Installation
Guide (IG), I realized that for the long term, we could use a small team
(2 to 4) for the IG to:

1) Work on new content/changes for upcoming releases, as soon as test1
is out or sooner.

2) Maintain the existing release, including bugfixes, content merges
from the existing version to the upcoming version, and content merges
coming the other way.

At the moment, I was hoping Stuart might have some small creation tasks
for Mayank, that is, help in finishing something that is unfinished.
This is outside of the scope of what Mayank is available for, so I don't
know if it will work.

I could be overplaying the need for ongoing help with the IG, please
correct me if I am!

FWIW, I have tried to respond to all requests for Fedora documentation
with a polite request for more writers.  I think the FDP is a great
place to get started for people who want to be more closely involved in
open source development.  Feel free to make such pleas yourselves,
wherever you can.  We can't be at fault for failing to create a tonne of
documentation if the community hasn't first provided a tonne+1
writers. :)

_ Karsten
-- 
Karsten Wade, RHCE * Sr. Tech Writer * http://people.redhat.com/kwade/
gpg fingerprint:  2680 DBFD D968 3141 0115    5F1B D992 0E06 AD0E 0C41   
               IT executives rate Red Hat #1 for value              
                 http://www.redhat.com/promo/vendor/

[Rahul Sundaram]

Hi

>  At the moment, I was hoping Stuart might have some
>  small creation tasks
>  for Mayank, that is, help in finishing something
>  that is unfinished.
>  This is outside of the scope of what Mayank is
>  available for, so I don't
>  know if it will work. 
I believe co authoring specific portions of the
installation guide and exchanging feedback on the rest
would work

>  I could be overplaying the need for ongoing help
>  with the IG, please
>  correct me if I am! 
I think it does require more authors to participate. I
have been giving all my feedback for every revision
and I will continue doing that as long as I can


>  
>  FWIW, I have tried to respond to all requests for
>  Fedora documentation
>  with a polite request for more writers.  I think the
>  FDP is a great
>  place to get started for people who want to be more
>  closely involved in
>  open source development.  Feel free to make such
>  pleas yourselves,
>  wherever you can.  We can't be at fault for failing
>  to create a tonne of
>  documentation if the community hasn't first provided
>  a tonne+1
>  writers. :) 
there is a lot of distro neutral introductory stuff at
tldp.org. I can provide you a good list of the best
documents in that category. Would you consider linking
to them from fedora.redhat.com/docs. how about
bringing in stuff from fedoranews.org?



=====
Regards
Rahul Sundaram


		
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[Stuart Ellis]

I'm delighted to hear from you !

Since it will probably be easier to follow the thread, I'm going to do a
longer response as a reply to Karsten's mail.
--

Stuart Ellis
s.ellis(a)fastmail.co.uk

[Stuart Ellis]

On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 05:10:56 -0800, "Karsten Wade" <kwade(a)redhat.com&gt;
said: 
>  Seeing the tremendous effort that Stuart has put into the
> Installation
>  Guide (IG), I realized that for the long term, we could use a small team
>  (2 to 4) for the IG to:
>  
>  1) Work on new content/changes for upcoming releases, as soon as test1
>  is out or sooner.
>  
>  2) Maintain the existing release, including bugfixes, content merges
>  from the existing version to the upcoming version, and content merges
>  coming the other way. 
I came to the same conclusion - that multiple maintainers are a
necessity in the long term.  My reasons were slightly different, though:

1) Single point of failure.  ATM, whenever I'm ill, away etc. work stops
altogether.  

2) Fedora and Anaconda support a wider range of technology than a single
person is likely to have access to, or use.  I don't have any systems
that are 64-bit, include wireless etc., so I can't document those
features.  There are also some software technologies that I don't have
any experience of - Hesiod, software RAID setups etc.

So any help is good, even if people only fill in gaps.

>  At the moment, I was hoping Stuart might have some small creation
> tasks
>  for Mayank, that is, help in finishing something that is unfinished.
>  This is outside of the scope of what Mayank is available for, so I don't
>  know if it will work. 
There are a number of areas where people can help, some small and other
large (there are several unwritten sections).  I'll post an update with
a TODO file tonight, so Mayank can have a look and decide which bits he
would feel comfortable tackling.

>  FWIW, I have tried to respond to all requests for Fedora
> documentation
>  with a polite request for more writers.  I think the FDP is a great
>  place to get started for people who want to be more closely involved in
>  open source development.  Feel free to make such pleas yourselves,
>  wherever you can.  We can't be at fault for failing to create a tonne of
>  documentation if the community hasn't first provided a tonne+1
>  writers. :) 
It may be that the project doesn't promote enough right now - I went
from toying with the idea of writing documentation to doing it through
going to an IRC "docs day" that was advertised on the main GNOME news
site.  The "GNOME Love" system is also an interesting model for
attracting and mentoring new contributors.  There are a number of
approaches, but it really depends on how you would like to develop the
project - you may only want the FDP to handle certain kinds of
documentation, or feel that you don't want to push too hard before CVS
is finalised.
--

Stuart Ellis
s.ellis(a)fastmail.co.uk