Proposal Regarding Documentation Problems
Posts: 33
Hi all,
I haven't been posting a lot to the forums so most of you may not recognize my handle, but I am very interested in documentation for MEPIS and GNU/Linux in general. I had talked to Warren some time ago, before he got so wrapped up in the new beta releases. We discussed the need for documentation for the new converts to open source software in general and MEPIS specifically. I volunteered to help work on improving documentation, but sadly have had little to contribute due to the rapidly changing situation we find ourselves in at the moment.
As I started gathering information for step by step guides and HOWTOs I found the landscape changing so rapidly that I couldn't keep up through my own individual efforts. Warren and I had discussed creating a system of community generated documentation as a future goal. The more I think about it the more I come to the conclusion that we need to move forward on that rather than focusing on any individually created static content. I think the wiki or some similar type of user edited content may be the best solution. There are a whole bunch of open source projects at http://sourceforge.net/ and other places that deal with projects that may adapt well to our needs for user contributions to documenting MEPIS and the open source software applications it contains.
If you have any ideas on the subject, either as a user with needs for better documentation or someone with some experience with wikis or similar collaborative systems please post your comments and suggestions to this thread. I believe whatever we can find should be licensed in GPL or similar open source license, be Web based, and have the ability to be edited by the MEPIS community as a whole and not just an individual or predefined group. This would imply the need for keeping a history of revision and safeguards to limit malicious and inappropriate postings.
With Warren so busy with the technical improvements of MEPIS it looks like some of the best solutions to documentation may need to come from those of us in the community with the interest and desire. I think it would be a good payback to the open source community that developed all the free applications if we were to make all documentation that we create that is not specific to MEPIS available to the open source community as a whole. Also, don't forget that there are already community made documentation projects like The Linux Documentation http://tldp.org/ from which we can learn.
Please do whatever you can to help us help ourselves. Thanks for taking the time to read and consider this proposal.
Good But Not What I Had In Mind
Posts: 33
Thanks! These are good resources, but not exactly what I had in mind. Forums serve to answer questions, but also tend to decentralize where you can go to find the information you need. Forums, for the most part, are built around specific problems, and are not always organized as step-by-step procedures. I fear I am looking for something that may not already exist.
What I see as becoming necessary is a better way to document an open source product through organized community involvement, not just address specific people's problems one at a time. Having multiple efforts to solve the same or similar problems is good for development, success becomes Darwinian, and it allows for more than one solution to the same problem.
My own frustration in trying to document MEPIS is due to the rapidly evolving nature of GNU/Linux in general with significant changes happening in many major subsystems all the time. Just the change from KDE3.1 to KDE3.2 is highly significant, toss in a new kernel and swap a few packages in or out of a distro and it can require a completely new set of documentation. How much effort would any one person want to put into documentation just to see everything change next month?
I think we need a way to bring information together in a central location rather than scatter it out through unrelated forums. Maybe something more like a wiki than a forum. What we need are step by step instructions that a newbie could follow, located in a place that is easy to find. Something where the community can make changes to the primary documentation themselves and still keep the information in one place, not scattered across multiple sites.
Just my thoughts. I strongly encourage further discussion on this matter.
The reason I gave you those
Posts: 108
The reason I gave you those two links is there is a very dedicated group of Mepis users that would love to help out,just ask.Once you see the posts you should be able to find some help.Like you said things change so fast that by the time you put it on paper,some things will be a little different.Mepis users are great about helping each other out.The reason I tried Mepis was because of Debian,that is the base.Good Luck and from all of us Mepis users,thank you david
____
x x \
L
-/
?? I've launched a site as we
Posts: 249
?? I've launched a site as well that has a framework for writing how-to's.?? I feel that any Linux version that has a detailed how-to collection will succeed no matter what.?? So, I've got a site up and running that I am starting to collect how-to's in .pdf format so that everyone can read them, download them, whatever.?? http://mepislinux.org
I've only finished one but am looking for others to take some other subjects on and submit them.
http://mepislovers.com/?? h
Posts: 108
http://mepislovers.com/?? http://mepisforum.sytes.net/ they can help!
____
x x \
L
-/