collaborating with FedoraNEWS.ORG

[Karsten Wade]

There are a few FedoraNEWS.ORG contributors on this list, and I've been
considering a few notions I'd like to discuss with this whole group of
writers, to see what develops.

I want to acknowledge that FedoraNEWS.ORG has been doing a great service
to the Fedora community.  The accuracy, timeliness, and usefulness of
the articles is great.  I've personally used several tutorials to
accomplish new things with Fedora Core, such as setting up a yum
repository.

It seems that the niche FedoraNEWS.ORG documentation and the Fedora docs
project (FDP) fill are not the same.  I think the two groups (ideally)
provide different and useful services to Fedora users.  

I see the FedoraNEWS.ORG articles as generally being timely, short, and
focused on solving single problems.  These articles are responsive and
useful during test periods.  Over the longterm, there may be less
attraction in maintaining much of the docs because the problems they
solve are no longer problems.

I see the Fedora docs project as providing longer, broader documents
that focus on multiple aspects of using Fedora Core or are more complex
in their handling.  There is room to grow into sizable books.  Normally,
the majority of the content in an FDP guide shouldn't change very much
from Fedora Core release to release, typically just details of command
usage and so forth.

Even if you accept my definitions as entirely true, there is still
plenty of room for crossover, and it was exactly that fact I have in
mind.

I'm wondering about the possibility of converting some of the longer
FedoraNEWS.ORG articles/tutorials into formal FDP guides.  I would
envision something like this:

1. Identify FedoraNEWS.ORG tutorials which have momentum and scope to be
maintainable for the long term.

2. The author(s) either convert the content to FDP standard DocBook, or
enlist the help of other FDP contributors to convert.  Once in DocBook,
this is maintainable as the single source for all target systems,
hopefully including FedoraNEWS.ORG.

3. Either the original author can continue maintaining, take on a joint
maintainer from existing FDP writers, or hand over maintenance if there
is someone interested in taking it on.

It might be possible to stitch together several FedoraNEWS.ORG articles
into one guide, for example a Fedora Yum Guide that includes how to
configure and use yum, how to set up a repository, solutions for common
problems, customizations, etc.  These could easily be rendered for FDP
as one guide, and for FedoraNEWS.ORG as a series of short articles. 
Single source, multiple audiences.

One of my goals is clear - to increase the quantity and usefulness of
the FDP guides.  Hopefully there is something useful in here for the
FedoraNEWS.ORG contributors.

I'm usually hanging out at #fedora-docs on irc.freenode.net, or can come
over to #fedoranews.org for discussion.  I know licensing is one thing
to cover; fortunately, a copyright holder can dual-license, so that is a
solution.  So far, FDP docs are under the GNU FDL 1.2+ (e.g.
http://fedora.redhat.com/participate/documentation-guide/ln-legalnotice.html).  Since the CC license used by FedoraNEWS.ORG allows it (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/1.0/), anyone could make a derivative work from FedoraNEWS.ORG articles, but it seems like a better idea to collaborate and single-source.

Just out here doing too much thinking ...

- Karsten
-- 
Karsten Wade, RHCE, Tech Writer
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