Re: Manifesto

[Jorge Godoy <godoy@conectiva.com>]

>>>>> On Sun, 22 Oct 2000 17:24:24 -0700, David Lawyer <dave@lafn.org> said:

    DL> The info system is complicated to use and I don't like it (but am
    DL> forced to use in sometimes).  I'm not sure we need to convert into it.

Since it's an automatica conversion, I don't see why not using
it... But I agree with you that there are bigger priorities before we
start worrying with 'info' and additional formats.

    DL> The problem here is that it's a lot of extra effort for the authors to
    DL> add metadata.  I think for most HOWTOs it would be much more
    DL> productive to improve their content and quality.  Since the sgmls 
    DL> we use allows one to create new tags, I don't think there is any need
    DL> to mention this.

In fact, if we had correctly marked up documents, we could generate
meta information from it's text. Let's say that it's interesting to
index all commands used in some document, so that we could group
documents that use some common commands in a group. This information
is already there with <command> tags (DocBook). 

    DL> "recommendations" but "requirements" or "conventions".  Otherwise
    DL> people will think that we accept any format and not bother to read it.

And if a document is good but not in 'required' format? Are we going
to reject it?

    DL> We distribute LDP documentation in various formats such as HTML,
    DL> Postscript, and plain text.  Authors write in a format which can be
    DL> converted (by computer) to these formats (and more).  Formats which 
    DL> can be so converted include: DocBook or LinuxDoc (both are
    DL> SGML languages).  HOWTOs should be in one of these formats.  If you
    DL> use DocBook check first to see which versions we accept.

I would add:

(...) check first to see which versions we accept (SGML versions since
3.1 and XML versions since 4.1.2 are known to work). 

It would make things easier for people writing documents. :-) I also
suggest that we make a page where we document which versions we accept
and which versions we recommend. 

    DL> You may see what these sgml formats look like by downloading a HOWTO
    DL> (in sgml) from an LDP site.  We may accept a HOWTO in just plain text
    DL> if we can find someone to manually convert it to DocBook, etc.

IMHO, if we say that we 'require' a format, we can't make
excessions. That's why I asked about what we're going to do with a
good document in a format other than the required...

Maybe the use of 'we strongly suggest' instead of 'require'.... 



See you.
-- 
Godoy. <godoy@conectiva.com>

Departamento de Publicações       Conectiva S.A.
Publishing Department             Conectiva Inc.


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