[CentOS-docs] Documentation SIG

So i've thrown together a quick outline of what i'm proposing.  You
can view it at https://hackpad.com/CentOS-Wiki-Documentation-bmwZvq71MbA,
but to edit you'll need to create a Hackpad account.  If there's a
better collaboration tool that everybody uses, let me know.

Basically, at first i'd like to keep it simple.  Red Hat provides
dozens of documents per release, so I think a good start would be to
simply modify the Installation Guide and Deployment Guide to the
extent that we can redistribute it and maintain the terms of the
licensing.  If all that requires is we remove any references to Red
Hat and branding, I'm more than happy to take that on.

Regards,

Tim

On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 9:17 AM, Jim Perrin <jperrin at centos.org> wrote:
>
>
> On 03/13/2014 08:44 AM, Tim Krupinski wrote:
>> Thanks for the info.  I just checked Redhat's support site, and it
>> appears the docs are licensed as such:
>>
>>      This document is licensed by Red Hat under the Creative Commons
>> Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
>> <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>. If you
>>      distribute this document, or a modified version of it, you must
>> provide attribution to Red Hat, Inc. and provide a link to the
>>      original.     If the document is modified, all Red Hat trademarks
>> must be removed.
>>
>> Are you concerned with the amount of effort it would take to remove all
>> of RedHat's trademarks if we were to modify it?  Either way, one of the
>> first things I wanted to address wasn't necessarily adding more
>> documentation, but starting a conversation about how it's currently
>> organized on the wiki.
>
>
> Yes. It was mostly a 'level of effort' concern since the sources aren't
> published. Coupled with a concern about how we'd add our
> project-specific documentation (variant or sig work as joe brought up).
>
>
>> For example, on the Front Page, there are four different tabs that
>> reference "Documentation" - Help, Tips & Tricks, How To, and FAQs.  It
>> isn't very clear whether the FAQ is about the Wiki, or the project.
>> Compare that to the Fedora Project wiki, where the front page has one
>> pretty obvious link in the sidebar called 'Documentation'.  From there
>> you can get the official manuals, information on the IRC channel, etc.
>
> What suggestions or changes would you make?
>
>> The other mild annoyance i've experienced with CentOS documentation is
>> that i'm commonly linked to a section of an outdated version - like the
>> other day when I searched for some X11 settings and was referred to
>> Chapter 30 from the CentOS 4.5 manual.  Personally it's not a big deal
>> because I know that this is still relevant.  But as a newcomer to either
>> the Linux commnities or CentOS specifically, I would be wondering why I
>> can't find up-to-date documents.
>
> True, but a fair chunk of this is related to the fact that we don't
> currently have 6.x documentation.
>
>
>> That being said, I suppose the next step is to find out how I should go
>> from here.  Are there any sort of regular meetings?  What other
>> collaboration tools are used?  If there's nothing formal maybe a
>> conference call might prove useful.  I can set up a bridge line if
>> people are interested in that.
>
>
> So, lets work at establishing a set of goals or changes we need to make.
> Once we have that we can get some input or agreement from others on the
> list, and then identify how/when to make the changes.
>
>
>> Thanks again,
>>
>> Tim
>>
>>> Joe Brockmeier <mailto:jzb at redhat.com>
>>> March 13, 2014 at 8:00 AM
>>>
>>> Another thing to consider, and I don't know if I've seen elsewhere, is
>>> whether there'll be a 'standard' way to produce documentation for
>>> variants / anything produced by SIGs.
>>>
>>> Will that just go on the wiki? Should it be full-blown DocBook guides
>>> like the official upstream docs? Will every SIG just make that decision
>>> on their own? (In a perfect world, documentation for all variants would
>>> be similar and not a Frankenstein's monster mix of wiki, DocBook, or
>>> whatever else.)
>>>
>>> I guess the Xen4CentOS project would be the current poster child for
>>> variants? Looks like that documentation lives on the wiki:
>>>
>>> http://wiki.centos.org/Manuals/ReleaseNotes/Xen4-01
>>>
>>> Best,
>>>
>>> jzb
>>> Jim Perrin <mailto:jperrin at centos.org>
>>> March 13, 2014 at 7:12 AM
>>> On 03/12/2014 09:39 AM, Tim Krupinski wrote:
>>>> Hey all -
>>>>
>>>> Just curious to find out if there's any activity with the documentation
>>>> SIG?  I'd like to join.  One thing i've noticed is that it seems like
>>>> documentation for CentOS ends at 5.  While the documentation is more or
>>>> less mirrored from RedHat's site, this can be confusing to beginners since
>>>> they may get the impression that documentation isn't there.
>>>
>>> Most of the activity has been around things other than docs, but you do
>>> bring up a good point. We *need* to address this.
>>>
>>> With the 6.x documentation, there was a licensing change that
>>> complicates things for us. Changes to the documentation mean that you
>>> can't redistribute. Oracle appears to work around this by shipping the
>>> official pdf documentation.
>>>
>>> The web pages for the docs are also done slightly differently, and
>>> mirroring them would require editing the html. We're not certain if this
>>> constitutes a 'change' or not and have been focusing on other things
>>> (SIG, dojo efforts).
>>>
>>>> That being said, i would love to help out with bringing the wiki up to date
>>>> in this regard.
>>>
>>> This would be fantastic, and I would very much welcome your efforts.
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>
> --
> Jim Perrin
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