Integrating upstream and OS-specific help (was Re: Lack of release targeting in Malone)
Matthew Paul Thomas
mpt at myrealbox.com
Wed May 3 07:30:49 UTC 2006
On May 3, 2006, at 6:55 AM, Matthew East wrote:
>
> On Tue, 2006-05-02 at 11:43 -0700, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> ...
>> This is why Malone makes a distinction between distribution packages
>> and upstream products. You should target your fixes to releases of
>> ubuntu-docs, and Ubuntu drivers should target Ubuntu releases. If
>> you feel that a bug should be fixed for Dapper, notify me and I will
>> take that decision.
>
> The distinction is a tricky one for us, because everyone files bugs in
> ubuntu-docs, and often they are packaging bugs, which we will fix, and
> Daniel will upload. But, I suppose that to be consistent with Malone
> we really have to continually reassign bugs to the upstream product
> releases, even though we don't release ubuntu-docs anywhere except for
> Ubuntu.
> ...
Jumping wildly off-topic (follow up to ubuntu-doc@), that seems to be a
structural bug in ubuntu-docs. Perhaps there should be a "Help for
Gnome-based systems" product, that produces a skeleton help structure
with categories for help on the entire operating system, and actual
help for Nautilus, the Gnome panel, and the Gnome utilities. Then
distributions such as Ubuntu, Debian, Red Hat, and so on can fill out
OS-specific sections (such as "Installing and configuring software") in
ways appropriate to them, and make whatever other distribution-specific
tweaks are necessary. Distributed version control will make this much
more practical. (For example, Debian and Ubuntu would likely merge from
each other fairly heavily even in the OS-specific sections.)
The current situation -- with upstream Gnome producing self-contained
help on Gnome programs, then distributors making completely separate
stuff -- does nobody any good, least of all the poor people trying to
use the help. It results in, for example, the sheer silliness of the
"Ubuntu Desktop Guide" coexisting with the "Desktop User Guide". It
would be great to get upstream and distributors working more closely
together to fix this.
--
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/
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