Clarification

[Karsten Wade]

On Thu, 2004-08-05 at 05:17, redwire at therockmere.com wrote:
> I guess I kicked the hornets nest...

Aww, you only tried to solve a problem that plagues us all.

> so, Let me clarify a couple of points
> that I raised in my last post
> I am not suggesting that we Fork the doc project.

Okay, I understand that, and maybe fork was too harsh of a word, but
given this:

> I used the offer of setting a CVS on my server only as repository for
> completed documentation, to be made avail on a website.
                           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I'm not really concerned about the CVS, or even a Wiki for that matter
... as repositories of source content that can come over to the One True
CVS in a few, simple steps.   Dave Pawson, for example, has demonstrated
a working method for taking Anaconda docs written in Wiki and converting
them to vanilla DocBook.

It's the "made avail(able) on a website" that is a concern.  I think it
would be very useful to advance the current XML codebase in a CVS
somewhere while we wait for the One True CVS, but we really need to hold
off on disseminating a URL for the documents, i.e., in announcements, on
mailing lists, etc.

Documents are a little different from software; when they are in a
broken, unusable state, they can _look_ working and lead users astray. 
Broken code will usually just segfault and be done with it.  A broken
document can be disastrous.  It's really OK if we develop documents
without "releasing early, releasing often."


> I propose to give CVS or U'L access to ONLY the active members of this
> list group for upload of Completed project(s). Then they are propagate to
> the website. Docs are then avail for dissemination.

I like this except for the propagation to random URLs as even temporary
locations.  We can have everything lined up for going onto
fedora.redhat.com/docs when we can make those changes, which might even
be at anytime.

> OK, here is what I have to ask\state;

Speaking for myself ...

> 1) Is this acceptable to the group?

With my caveats, yes.  Ye gods know I don't have time to set up a CVS
server right now. :)

> 2) Can CVS port to a live site? if so, where is the tutorial. Is there a
> better tool for this idea?
> ( I can have a Nuke site up ASAP, but I dis-like some of the display
> features for docs,but, can the RSS feeds pull the data?)

I recommend we stick to CVS for now.  I'm sold on the value of that
idea.

> 3) If RH opens their CVS ~ or starts posting docs ~ then they become prime

We are the Fedora docs project, regardless of who holds the gate keys. 
Let's act like we are FDP, and when we rattle the gate, we'll have
baskets and baskets of documents ready to post

> 4) Proposed \ avail names?
> 5) I'm not asking you, singularly or as a group, to duplicate your
> published work to 2 CVS's if there is a way to scrap the RH CVS. if so,
> how?

I think your CVS can become the latest tree, and get merged back into
Fedora CVS, then you can maintain a mirror if it suits you.

> Lastly, Karsten ~ TY for the shameless plug. I love tech writing and
> trning, but I'd never get that job ~ I write like I talk ~ rambling
> on-and-on-and... you get the idea!

You betcha.

cheers - Karsten
-- 
Karsten Wade, RHCE, Tech Writer
a lemon is just a melon in disguise
http://people.redhat.com/kwade/
gpg fingerprint: 2680 DBFD D968 3141 0115  5F1B D992 0E06 AD0E 0C41