"Official" Companion (was Fedora Core 2 Distribution Size - The separated OS)

[Karsten Wade]

On Mon, 2004-01-05 at 06:54, Jef Spaleta wrote:
> Tom Diehl wrote:
> 
> > FWIW when I was in barnes & nobel the other day I saw a book called 
> > "Fedora Companion" It is by Red Hat Press and contained a 2 CD set
of FC1 or
> > so the label says. I did not buy it but for those of you wanting a
stripped
> > down version to install it appears that it is already available. You
just
> > have to buy the book. :-)
> 
> it's actually called "Official Fedora Companion".

I had to do some fact checking to be sure this is (mostly) correct. 
Caveat lector: I am writing this as a Fedora docs project member and
_not_ as a representative of Red Hat, Inc.  I.e., I'm a writer, not a
lawyer. :)

Red Hat Press is a sub-brand that Red Hat allows a given publisher to
market under.  So, the "Official Fedora Companion" is a general
market book intended to incite people to use and participate in the
Fedora Project, not to compete with e.g. Fedora docs project (FDP) or
fedoranews.org.  It is also not a product of the Red Hat documentation
team.

AIUI, this book was well into the publication cycle when the initial Red
Hat Linux project was conceived, and well before the merge with Fedora. 
Obviously, Nick didn't bang out this book from text editor to ink on the
shelves in just a few short months.

If we want to mark anything from Fedora Project as Official, we'll have
to set those standards ourselves and enforce them.  In the end, none of
us can stop a publisher from using the word in a title, no matter how
unofficial it might actually be.  Because of the dilution of the word
"official", I'd recommend against using it for Fedora Project docs.

> And that makes me wonder.... what is the status of the documentation
> subproject? I can't help be feel a little miffed that that
> a for cost book...an "Official" book...covering things like installing
> fedora is coming out before we have a rework of at least the Red Hat
> linux install guide...into the Fedora install guide.
> I'd personally like to see "Official" status to these sort of for cost
> reference resources be withheld until after the documentation
subproject
> has a chunk of documentation available...in an effort to encourage
> writers and editors to contribute to the documentation subproject as a
> priority..over individual efforts.  Of course, it would do my mind
some
> good to know that the author of that "Official" companion book is
active
> in the official documentation subproject as well. But even then, I'm
> still not sure I like the idea of deeming for cost resources
"Official"
> before the official documentation project has at least an install
> guide...as a matter of policy to encourage people to work on the
> "official" fedora documents.   
> 
> This isn't exactly a complaint, since i'm not as in the loop on the
doc
> project as i could be..so my initial negative reaction could easily be
> based on ignorance of where things stand. But it did make me raise an
> eyebrow, because I want to see documentation coming out of the
> documentation subproject be THE priority documentation. If the people
> behind the documentation efforts like the "Official Fedora Companion"
> book and the tutorials at fedoranews.org aren't contributing directly
to
> the official fedora doc subproject, that is a problem. 

I think my above comments answer most of your questions about the
"Official" book ... now I'll give a quick snapshot of what is happening
with the docs project.

With participants from the Red Hat documentation team -- Tammy Fox as
project lead, and regular input from Ed Bailey and myself, none of us
being Red Hat Press authors ;-) -- the Fedora docs project
(http://fedora.redhat.com/projects/docs/) was founded to provide the
following documentation:

* Production and maintenance of
  * Fedora Core specific tutorials and howto documents
  * FC specific Documentation Guide
  * FC Installation Guide (IG)

List membership (fedora-docs-list at redhat.com) is at least 50 persons. 
Currently, list members are working on Anaconda documentation, Fedora
security considerations, installing an SSH server with public/private
key authentication, and various consumer electronics related tutorials
for digital cameras, PDAs, and scanners.  Although software translation
(i18n) is a different project (and mailing list), translation tools and
other toolchain discussions are popular topics.

The reason there are only two full-blown manuals boils down to avoiding
a large mouthful for the FDP to chew on.  IMHO and as a simple project
member, this is the right thing to do -- we need to cut our teeth on
bites that are appropriate to the team experience and current level of
interaction.  Remember that while most of the Fedora Core OS/kernel
developers have been working together all along, projects like the FDP
are essentially brand new, starting relatively from scratch.

However, there have been recent discussions amongst project members that
we may have set our sights too low, and that people want real manuals
produced by the FDP.  Project members seem willing to take on the work.
We're going to continue hashing this out, and if you are interested in
more, list membership is open to all.

hth - Karsten
-- 
Karsten Wade   :      Tech Writer, RHCE     :  o: +1.831.466.9664
kwade at redhat.com : http://rhea.redhat.com/ :   c: +1.831.818.9995
         Red Hat Applications : WAF, CMS, Portal Server         
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