Re: Informal survey (was Re: Banner ads)

[Vladimir Vuksan <vuksan@cs.unm.edu>]

On Sat, 23 Oct 1999, Poet/Joshua Drake wrote:

> I am afraid, at least in IMHO it is not obvious, agreed, most people that
> are reasonable Linux Veterans know of the Linux Documentation Project but
> most people I talk to that are just "hobbyists" have never heard of us.
> Most new users don't even know where the /usr/doc directory is. And even
> if it is listed in the CD or Book... when was the last time you read the
> instructions?

I usually read the instructions when I need to achieve something. Talking
to few hobbyists might not be a very representative sample. I personally
would disagree that there are very few people who read the documentation
by the amount of e-mail I get from people who have read my HOWTOs. For
example I got number of e-mails when RedHat 6 came out pointing to a fact
that DHCP configuration did not work the way it was stated (Redhat
switched DHCP daemons). Also on a regular basis I get questions from
newbies who have had problems configuring Linux e.g.

 > I read your HOW-TO on cable modems.  I have only one basic need which I
 >could not find in your document.  How do I configure the DNS properties
 >say using linuxcfg?  I have heard that you sometimes have to hard code
 >the DNS IP's but I am confused because I find I can do this in perhaps

These are the reasons why as someone already stated maintainership is
currently a more pressing issue than marketing.

Vladimir


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