Re: [Gnewsense-dev] Documentation

[Sam Geeraerts]

Op Mon, 24 Jun 2013 15:18:07 -0700
schreef Christian Bryant <address@hidden>:

> What I meant by the above is simply that the compiled gNewSense
> documentation set would be the de-facto reference for each release,
> and that it _could_ form the base of the wiki, but since the wiki is a
> living thing, the wiki would likely inform future releases of the
> compiled documentation set as useful information is contributed.

Right. So the focus of the documentation team would be on the
documentation set and they could cherry pick from the free-for-all wiki.

To get such an effort going, it might be more convenient to start
collaboration on the wiki to brainstorm about an outline that works and
move to Texinfo or Docbook in VCS once it takes shape.

> Also, I believe that the documentation should fully represent the
> gNewSense statement that gNewSense "...aims to remove all the
> non-free software from..." "...Debian to make a 100% Free Software
> distribution."  This would be seen from the bottom up, from the
> documentation source code, to the framing of the initial manual,
> to the practice of updating the system in a "free" fashion and
> in using only tools on the system that are "free".  What you don't
> want is simply a copy of the Debian documentation, or for users to
> simply install the Debian manuals and believe that they are using
> a Debian OS.  This is gNewSense, not Debian.

That's be nice. But rebranding/trimming all of the documentation is a
*lot* of work, depending on how far you want to go. We're just a few
people, not 1000 DDs. Of course any documentation we inherit from
Debian which encourages non-free software or is just wrong for us
warrants a bug report.

> I am a fan of Linux from Scratch, but I replace packages here and
> there with a combination of software - especially Linux-libre - that
> I feel good about using as an FSF supporter.  Not everyone can
> roll their own GNU+Linux system, or know why they should, and so
> the documentation should always remind them whether explicitly or
> by example that the core value of the gNewSense project has not
> changed, demonstrating "freedom in action".  I was not using LFS
> when gNewSense first came out, so I support the project because
> I believe in the message and in making that easily available to the
> average user, and because it was the first "free" OS I ever used.

Good to know. Thanks.