Documentation project status

[Edward C. Bailey]

>>>>> "Karsten" == Karsten Wade <kwade at redhat.com> writes:

Karsten> On Sun, 2003-12-21 at 06:47, Nick wrote:
...
>> 3. Are there any priorities or road maps for this project?

>> 4. The main Red Hat site already has some great documentation which is
>> largely applicable to Fedora, is anybody "converting" or "borrowing"
>> from this to get started? (better yet, are we allowed to do so, legally)

Karsten> Replying to both 3. and 4. together.  The following is basically
Karsten> my surmised opinion, so don't be overly surprised if I get a few
Karsten> facts wrong. :)

Karsten> The focus for the Fedora docs project is primarily on tutorials
Karsten> and how-to documentation (fact).  Our experience building and
Karsten> supporting the enterprise product level documentation for Red Hat
Karsten> has shown that it is a truly more-than-full-time job (fact).  Not
Karsten> expecting that level of commitment from the open source community,
Karsten> Tammy (wisely) decided to have the Fedora documentation be of the
Karsten> easier to produce and maintain tutorial variety (guess).

While I can't claim to be a resident of Tammy's cranium :-), I do recall
discussions surrounding some of her thinking at the time.  She felt that
tutorials would be easier for an interested party to write than an entire
manual (or even a chapter of a manual).

Karsten> The sole exception is the Installation Guide and this project's
Karsten> Documentation Guide (fact).

Note that the "Installation Guide" mentioned here is a still-aborning
document that is *not* related to any previous Red Hat Linux Installation
Guide.

Karsten> The content of the RHEL and RHL documents is covered under the
Karsten> OPL; you can check the license for any doc by looking at the
Karsten> legalnotice.html page, accessible from the ToC of any document,
Karsten> e.g.:

Karsten> http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-3-Manual/admin-guide/legalnotice.html

Ummm, one minor point.  You'll note that These documents include the
following options to the OPL:

    "Distribution of substantively modified versions of this document is
     prohibited without the explicit permission of the copyright holder."

    "Distribution of the work or derivative of the work in any standard
     (paper) book form for commercial purposes is prohibited unless prior
     permission is obtained from the copyright holder."

These options effectively restrict documents licensed in this fashion from
being used for the Fedora project.

Karsten> IMHO, the conversion project would be pretty big to perform - the
...

Unfortunately, given the license these points are all moot...

                                Ed
-- 
Ed Bailey        Red Hat, Inc.          http://www.redhat.com/