what next?

[Dimitris Glezos]

Karsten Wade wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-11-06 at 20:28 +0100, Bela Pesics wrote:
>> [...]
>> I can also imagine using http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/ for something. I
>> am curious if the referenced materials could be used to put together a
>> handbook without double efforts in a efficient way.
> 
> [...]
> But ... hmm ... there has been discussion in the past of having a
> kbase.fedoraproject.org that is a stand-alone knowledgebase.  If we
> opened it to all Fedora account holders and had kbase articles queued
> for this team to edit (part of a workflow), maybe we could build up
> something very useful.  I could see many discussions on e.g. fedora-list
> or fedoraforum.org being worth migrating into a kbase article.
> 
> So, this is an idea to follow, but not sure if we can directly connect
> such live content into a handbook.  Certainly as a source for
> inspiration, such as finding out the most commonly asked questions to
> give an idea of what people need us to write about.

So, as I see it we need a balance between a solid solution like 
"everything in Docbook" or a usable solution like "everything in the 
wiki or in a kbase". With the first approach 
*publication/maintainability* is easier and more simple but with the 
second the actual *writing* is. Second has advantages like better 
monitoring/live results, but with the cost of less functionality and a 
cost overhead for producing the final form.

With the MoinDocbook we try to do a little of both but it seems that the 
transition from wiki to Docbook is not as easy nor as solid as it sounds 
(correct me if I'm wrong here). The problem could be that we are trying 
to maintain the content in two forms instead of one with just two 
front-ends (the web one and the cvs-checkout/emacs one).

I'll throw another idea on the table (probably a bit bold too), since 
now it's the best time to do it.

Maybe a live web front-end to the actual Docbook code in CVS/SVN would 
be a better solution? Let's say, we can see live the Docbook results and 
edit individual paragraphs, with each edit resulting in CVS commits? If 
we hook this up with the accounts system, everybody will be able to chip 
in like with the Beats system, and the result would be maintainable with 
the power of Docobok/CVS (no need to convert). I searched a bit and 
found a project that does exactly that:

  http://doc-book.sourceforge.net

I don't know if it's worth it (the customizing etc.), but it could be a 
candidate to substitute the wiki <-> docbook conversion. It is written 
in PHP, it uses xmltproc and friends, it seems to support multiple 
languages, content approving, intermediate docbook-focused syntax (or 
docbook). Last update was 1.5 year ago.

Actually, a month ago a similar discussion was made on Mark 
Shuttleworth's weblog under a post named "Writing a book collaboratively":

   http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/59

It seems that the above project was proposed as a good candidate. So, 
maybe this could be a good candidate for a joint project between the 
Ubuntu and Fedora teams? :)

-d



-- 
Dimitris Glezos
Jabber ID: glezos at jabber.org, PGP: 0xA5A04C3B
http://dimitris.glezos.com/

"He who gives up functionality for ease of use
loses both and deserves neither." (Anonymous)
--