proposed string change to ubuntu-docs

[Matthew East]

Dear Matt, Colin,

We have a string at the moment in the ubuntu-docs package which we would
like to apply to change, i.e. an exception to the String Freeze which
passed several weeks ago.

I am sending this email to you, in the hope that one/both of you will be
able to approve this string change, but in the event you are unwilling
to do so on a cursory glance, I'm happy to use this email as the base
for an application to the Technical Board to the same effect.

So, I'm going to have a stab at setting out the advantages/disadvantages
of amending this string, with a view to showing that it is a Good Thing.

The string under discussion is the one that appears in the Yelp base
menu, which you get when you click on Help in the menu. Presently it
reads:

Unofficial Ubuntu 5.10 Starter Guide

A bit of history behind this. In Hoary Hedgehog the docteam took the
ubuntuguide.org and made an xml version, which was made available from
Yelp with the link (Unofficial etc). During the Breezy development
cycle, the docteam has amended, updated and generally changed beyond all
recognition the guide, in an attempt to resolve problems with (e.g.)
legality, reliability and other such things. The result is a guide which
we consider may be deemed "official". However, we forgot to change the
faqguide.omf file which determines the link in the Yelp menu, so it
still has the old string.

We think that the word "unofficial" should be removed from this string.

Advantages of changing the string would be:
 * reflect the major changes and serious work that has gone into the
guide
 * give users greater confidence in the guide
 * avoid unnecessary conflicts with the guide at ubuntuguide.org

Now, as we all know, the string freeze is essentially in place to allow
translation of the stuff to go ahead. It is as well to mention at this
point that there has been no translation that I am aware of with regard
to that string, either for Hoary or for Breezy (i've checked the major
languages that I've seen). The string therefore appears in English
regardless of the user's locale. For this reason I am convinced that
there is no disadvantage to changing the string.

In fact, it goes even further than this. If we were to change the string
to Ubuntu FAQ Guide, this is a string which appears in the translated
document, and as a result we should be able to get a translated string
also appearing in the Yelp menu. So changing the string would have the
further advantage that we would be able to localise the link on the
front page of Yelp. This would be great because it would communicate to
users the fact that the document is, in fact, translated.

For all the above reasons I believe that this is a good case for making
a small exception to the string freeze. I think it's correct to say that
Jeff Bailey agrees, so we will leave it to you two, or the TB to decide.

Let us know!

Thanks very much,

Matt
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