[NTLUG:Discuss] More Open Source squabbling?

[David Neeley]

Kendall,

Thanks for the info re: the LDP. I, too, am very pleased with the DocBook
move. For those who don't understand what it means, the documentation should
become much more usable by folks like the government, enterprise-level
organizations, and even you and me if we have preferences in how our
documents are done. Additionally, if you might prefer some other look for
the docs, it's easy to slip in another definition file and output it
differently.

Basically, this is a move to make Linux appear more professional to many of
the folks we're trying to reach.

Kevin, is there a mailing list for Linux doc people? As soon as I get my
head above water, I intend to begin to make some contributions...at the
moment, working 60 hours per week in the documentation group in my new job
doesn't quite permit that to happen!

Regards,

David

-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-admin at ntlug.org [mailto:discuss-admin at ntlug.org]On Behalf
Of Kendall Clark
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 1999 12:57 PM
To: discuss at ntlug.org
Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] More Open Source squabbling?


>>>>> "Brian" == Brian  <briank at hex.net> writes:

    Brian> Yesterday I went over to the LDP to update my copy of the
    Brian> RPM How-To.  With just a shade of attitude, the author has
    Brian> apparently severed ties with LDP, and moved his docs over
    Brian> to OSWG. It took a few minutes to find a valid link to OSWG
    Brian> (there were a lot of linuxchix links in the google search).
    Brian> It looks like another documentation project under Open
    Brian> Source.

    Brian> What's going on with this DocBook crap?  Is the end of
    Brian> text-based documentation near?  And what's with this guy's
    Brian> attitude about the LDP having "to learn to pull"?

I'm heavily involved with the LDP, so I know what's up with all of
this.

The LDP has had some serious problems in dealing with document
updates, so many authors have started storing their documents in other 
places. It's not really an attitude thing. Trust me. I'm moving my
HOWTO to OSWG the next time I update it.

Also, moving to DocBook isn't "the end of text-based documentation",
and it isn't "crap". DocBook is the leading technical industry SGML
DTD and moving the LDP to DocBook, if it can be accomplished, will
make the LDP a much better resource. It has nothing to do with
text-based documentation. I'm assuming by "text-based" you mean
"documentation available in plain text" as opposed to some proprietary 
format. Rest assured that moving to DocBook has *nothing* whatever to
do with moving to a proprietary format. I regularly use DocBook to
generate plain text, HTML, PS, PDF and man pages.

"This guy" that you refer to is Donnie Barnes, and he's one of the
main developers of RPM, so he's not just some schmuck. If the LDP ever 
gets its problems sorted out, it won't be a big deal to copy the RPM
HOWTO SGML source file from OSWG.org and republish it at the
LDP. That's what he meant by "learning to pull".

It probably seems like he's got unwarranted attitude because you
heard, essentially, the middle of a long conversation.

Best,

Kendall
--
"Charging a price for my time will separate the expensive conferences that
attract powerful people from the marginal events where the hacker
community would get less leverage from my presence." -- Eric Raymond


_______________________________________________
http://ntlug.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss