Re: mini-HOWTO

[Gregory Leblanc <gleblanc@cu-portland.edu>]

Warning, this email may provoke flames.  Please, please, wait 15 minutes
after you've written your response, then read it again before replying. 
Also, if you would be so kind as to remove the ldp-submit list from
this, and move discussions to the ldp-discuss, where discussions of this
sort SHOULD be going on.

Alessandro Rubini wrote:
> 
> > Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="FrameBuffer.sgml"
> 
> I just read the howto, the real one. This covers exactly the same
> stuff.  Since writing is much easier than reading what others have
> done, we are going to face a lot of duplication.  It's very difficult
> to refuse duplicates, as people being refused is going to take is as
> personal, but I think the LDP can't host duplicate works or it will
> grow to be completely unuseful.

Agreed, and we certainly don't want that.

> 
> I think the LDP should insist on being notified *before* people start
> writing. It should coordinate efforts, not just collect works.

That IS part of what the LDP is here to do.  If one reads the LDP
website, and/or the HOWTO-HOWTO (I can't remember where it was) it says
that you should attempt to contact the HOWTO coordinator before you
begin writing anything.  I've emailed the LDP discuss list when I though
of writing things that I thought were missing.  Documents that get sent
to the LDP-Submit list don't ALWAYS get posted on the LDP site (do
they?).  If they do, then the list should be moderated.

> 
> It's very similar to what technical magazines do: they get offered
> articles before the individual article gets written. Also, the author
> must qualify to be able to deal with the task. I'm sure some people
> just sends articles shouting "this is great, you must publish it", but
> I think it's the minority; also, it's perfectly right for the mag to
> refuse publishing: "we won't invest resources in your article because
> we don't think it fits our mag".
> 
> People approach the LDP in a completely different way: everyone thinks
> to be good enough to deserve publication and this is a major problem.
> It looks like people thinks that the LDP is a huge hodge podge where
> everything not-so-bad can get its place and everyone who invests some
> time in writing technical stuff must get accepted aboard.  This is
> *very* bad, in my opinion, and will ruin the LDP, sooner or later.

I don't agree with you here.  The LDP is the place that I go when I'm
looking for documentation.  If I can't find it there, I search deja,
then ask on a newsgroup or mailing list.  THEN, if I can't find
anything, I ask (if I'm qualified) the LDP-discuss list if anybody is
working on such a thing already.  If people are looking at this
differently, then they haven't read the website or the HOWTO-HOWTO.  All
I can say to that is, RTFM.

> 
> It's a big problem of image, quality must be much more important than
> quantity, and people must be used to this. There *must* be strict
> technical review, and only good documents must be approved. At least,
> there must be a "blessed" set of documents and a "mass" of contributed
> stuff, either badly written, or incorrect, or just redundant of other
> documents.

This isn't really structured, but the review process DOES exist.  Guy
(or somebody else) can probably explain how it works better than I.

> 
> To this aim, we need a charismatic leader or group of leaders, who can
> accept and refuse works without offending anybody.  This is how free
> software works: there always is a maintainer who accepts and refuses
> contributions, and nobody ever sends in stuff pretending it gets
> accepted.

This is just SCREAMING for trouble.  There have been STRONG objections
to this in the past, and I DON'T think we need to open this can of worms
again.  PLEASE, don't start this war again.  We have the LDP-discuss
list, and several people who are helping to co-ordinate.  

> 
> Why is the LDP different?
> 
> > I will be doing more mini's regarding other graphics cards in the
> > near future (matrox etc)
> 
> This makes absolutely no sense, in my opinion.
> 
> > 2) No part of the content may be copied or redistributed for the purpose
> >  of profit by anyone without consent from the author.
> 
> And this is against the manifesto. It's enough to refuse the document.
> I only noticed because it is at the end, after writing the text above
> while deleting the rest of the mail.

RTFM people.  Sorry, but that's what it comes down to.
	Greg


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