Re: Informal survey (was Re: Banner ads)

[Donnie Barnes <djb@redhat.com>]

> > Sometimes there needs to be a trouble maker.  I agree completely with
> > Jim's sentiment as well as Kendall's.  This "core team" business is
> > silly.  Marketing the LDP is silly.  
> 
> And ignoring the power of marketing is just as silly.
> 
> We must tell people where they can find good quality and free
> documentation.

We *must*?  Why?  Sure, RH needs "marketing" to sell "free" stuff, but
that's because we *sell* stuff.  A free software project shouldn't
need to spend dollars (donated or otherwise) to more effectively give
things away.  I guarantee you one thing:  If you produce a *free*
product worth having, everyone who needs it WILL find it.  Is this
a new concept???

> > Sure, if LDP members are already going to be at a trade show or 
> > conference, then fine, let them get the free booth that's available
> > (and for projects like this they always exist) and annoy RH or VA
> 
> Sorry that's not the way I see it.
> 
> We're not going to hand out flyers, but rather talk with people
> wondering why there's a documentation project, why it's free, what we're
> doing, what license we use...

I don't care *what* you do there.  Hand out flyers, talk to people, etc. 
All fine ideas. 

> We need to explain what the LDP is about, not give away flyers ; it sure
> can help but a discussion in the real world is better.

Okay, fine.  But chances are you'll already have LDP authors at each of
the major conferences and you can do all that at zero expense.  If you
must (I still say there's little point).

> > or someone to print off some flyers to hand out.  But to turn this
> 
> We try to do whatever possible by ourselves, and use exterior help
> only as the last possibility.

Huh?  That's why we have a banner ad on the website, I guess.  :-(

> > You folks are going off the deep end (and I'm addressing the "core
> > team" here) with issues that just don't matter.  The most important
> > thing that this project needs is *maintainership*, not leadership.
> > Fix the *technical* issues that still exist (submissions, tracking,
> > etc) and forget about all this other crap.
> 
> - Submission : fixed
> Did you try ldp-submit ?
> The ftp will also help that
> 
> - Tracking ?????????????
> 
> We've never discussed this. Maybe you mean indexing ?
> 
> What else do you suggest ?

You want "marketing"?  How about doing things like opening a dialog with
the major distributions to build a generic help browser that includes the
LDP docs indexed and such and presented to each new user when they log
in?  Now *that* is marketing, but it's really just a technical issue.

> Let's talk again about DocBook, and we will come to the same conclusion :
>  - there's no script to translate linuxdoc to docbook without a glitch

Not much of an issue.

>  - we can't impose it to authors who can't convert their docs

Sure you can.  Simply make it a migration where you support both for
a while and at the end just get some volunteers to convert those that
haven't been converted yet.

>  - then someone will suggest man/info/html/fill the blank

All inferior.

>  - and finally we'll say we can still wait a bit.

*sigh*  I love to see a "leader" who can effectively present a problem
*and* a complete argument for why it *can't* be solved all in the same
breathe.  That's useful.


--Donnie

--
  Donnie Barnes  http://www.donniebarnes.com  djb@donniebarnes.com  "Bah."
   Challenge Diversity.  Ignore People.  Live Life.  Use Linux.  879. V. 
    "They say that nobody is perfect. Then they tell you practice makes 
      perfect. I wish they'd make up their minds." -- Wilt Chamberlain



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