[long] Canonical are you serious?

[Sean Wheller]

On Monday 24 January 2005 09:23, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> We have limited resources, and we allocate them for maximum benefit.
> If Subversion 1.1.2 is truly the difference between you being able to do
> your work, and not, we can probably find a way to do it, but my impression
> is that it is a "nice to have", which would allow you to use some of its
> new features.

If it was a nice to have I would not be pushing so hard. To clear why.

Ubuntu is built on Debs and GNOME. The benefit is obvious. However, in order 
to take advantage or benefit from the upstream work, we need a way to access 
it that can be common among writers.

The principle of how the mechanics works may make this clearer.

Essentially, the User Guide can be heavily based on GNOME Docs. Majority of 
the content will be brought in by inclusion using XInclude and XPointer. So a 
section may look like this:

==========
Ubuntu Sect Title

Ubuntu introduction para.

XInclude or XPointer of GNOME doc.
============

Now GNOME docs are not in SVN, but in CVS. Furthermore, the docs are stored 
with each app, usually under the directory appname/C/help/ . This means a 
vendor drop is not just one checkout, but many. Unless you want to bring the 
app src code into your repository too. In this case we don't need that so we 
just want the appname/C/help/ from each app in GNOME CVS. I have automated 
this and updates using scripts.

As far as I can see this process may be easier under Bazaar, but the basic 
principle is the same. I will look into this is people decide to move to 
Bazaar (Please advise). Only by having a copy of the GNOME doc in the writers 
Working Copy can XInclude/XPointer work for building.

Now in certain cases writers will need to make changes in the GNOME part of 
the section outlined above. In thi scase we must decide if this is GNOME 
specific or ubuntu specific. If the change is GNOME specific we should try to 
patch and move it upstream.

So the Ubuntu docs can be viewed as a patch on the GNOME docs. To manage this 
effectively, the concept of vendor drops is the most efficient.

In short we need this because it will enable the doc team to produce Ubuntu 
docs in the most efficient manner. There is no point rewriting what GNOME or 
any other desktop have done. The time required with current human resources 
will be more than a year. People may not know this, but a single page of 
documentation, done properly, takes on average 5 hours to reach final 
production quality. So if you have a 100 page book it probably took 500 
hours. We can drastically reduce this by building on top of GNOME or any 
other Desktops work.



-- 
Sean Wheller
Technical Author
sean at inwords.co.za
084-854-9408
http://www.inwords.co.za
Registered Linux User #375355
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-doc/attachments/20050124/664ecdeb/attachment.pgp>