Re: Authorship

[Gary Preckshot <garrell@inreach.com>]

Dan Scott wrote:

>64 new messages in two days? Hmm, Gary P. must have posted something again...
heh.

I hate to be dull.

>So, I like the suggestion. We just need people that are willing to do it.
The information flow on ldp-submit is currently mostly one-directional.

That was one of the things I bitched about in the HOWTO-HOWTO - would be authors
were exhorted to ask for comments but there was no way specified to do it. As I
found out later, there isn't an official way.

>The reason I read the HOWTO-HOWTO was to get information on how to...

As I recall, there was nothing on DocBook tags and something on LinuxDoc tags. When
I accessed Marks HOWTO, it was written with DocBook, and his HOWTO was no help.
Eventually I figured it out with WP.

>Okay, I would like to question Gary P's argument that using "superior" non-Linux
tools helps improve the available Linux tools.

FSF has been doing this for years. First, there were all these Unix tools (like vi,
for instance, sed for another, awk, far too many to name) which FSF duplicated and
now they're on Linux. If it weren't for FSF, you'd have an OS with no tools.
Likewise, if enough interest gets generated, somebody does a clone of the item, GPLs
it, and suddenly it's available from the FSF. More likely, they don't do a clone,
but take the ideas and bundle them with others and do something entirely different.
Various games, X-Window managers that mimic Windows, come to mind. You, too, are
free to write a program, GPL it, and add to the FSF repertoire.

> The problem is that without
users who can point out the problems that they're encountering with the
available Linux tools, the people that are capable of developing and improving
the tools don't have a basis for deciding on what features need to be fixed or
added. In fact, if no-one ends up using the available Linux tools, there's not
much reason for a developer to generate new versions at all, is there?

That assumes developers are too stupid to see features in other software and imagine
those same features in theirs. I don't think they're that stupid and I think that
cross pollination takes place all the time. It certainly has in the other direction.
Virtually every Windows development environment is based on some form of make.

>Finally, just a general comment about SGML: I DO like knowing the tags that
constitute DocBook, since that's what SGML is all about.

Nothing stops you from doing that. However, what if you'd rather write than explore
DocBook? Do you want to be forced to plow through some one else's enthusiasm?

>As (possibly interesting) side information, I too used multiple platforms
to write my howto--Linux, Windows NT, and Windows 98. If I was using a
commercial editor, I would have had to buy three separate
licenses for the editor (or two, if I was using the non-commercial, non-SGML
aware version of WordPerfect on Linux). Instead I used Vim, which offers syntax
highlighting for DocBook 3.0/3.1, and provides the same interface on
Linux, Windows, and umpteen other platforms.

So tell Mark.

>Friend of the abnormal.

Thank you. I need all the friends I can get.

Gary



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