Proposal: Create product for each derivative's documentation

[Matthew East]

Hi,

On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 2:16 PM, Cody A.W. Somerville
<cody-somerville at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 5:49 AM, Matthew East <mdke at ubuntu.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 4:18 PM, Matthew East <mdke at ubuntu.com> wrote:
>> > On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 3:03 PM, Cody A.W. Somerville
>> > <cody-somerville at ubuntu.com> wrote:
>> >> This will continue to occur using a project group.
>> >
>> > I have two problems with using a project group for the ubuntu-doc
>> > project.
>>
>> {snipped}
>>
>> I'm raising this issue again because I don't think it is a good thing
>> that different parts of our project are using a separate project
>> (xubuntu-docs) and different parts are using a single project
>> (ubuntu-docs, kubuntu-docs, edubuntu-docs). I've already seen some
>> confusion start to grow with translation teams about where to find our
>> branches and translations as a result of this change, and I think we
>> need to plump for one way or the other.
>
> Could you show me where I can see evidence of this confusion? Where
> translations occur has not changed.

I've seen it in the Italian translation team - the relevant emails are
in Italian so I won't point you to them but the confusion arises out
of the fact that xubuntu-doc branches are in one place, and
kubuntu-doc and ubuntu-doc branches are in another place. I don't
think even you can argue that it's a good thing for xubuntu-docs to be
different to the structure used by ubuntu-docs, kubuntu-docs, and
edubuntu-docs: we either need to adopt your solution for all the
flavours, or for none.

>> As I've said in the past, I don't think the project group is the right
>> way to go, and I won't repeat myself about my reasons for that, but we
>> need to settle on a way of doing this that is consistent.
>
> I think we need to be consistent and use launchpad as it is intended to be
> used and how it is used by the greater Ubuntu and launchpad community.

The interpretation of how "launchpad is intended to be used" is
subjective here. My interpretation is that project groups are not
intended to be used for a team like ours. In fact, project groups are
for projects like Mozilla which have entirely different codebases and
projects (firefox, thunderbird, etc), not branches of the same
project. What I think confuses you is the fact that Launchpad itself
uses a project group for development, even though it is one product. I
believe that the Launchpad team has adopted that approach because it
found it most convenient, not because it was consistent with the
project group design. In fact, I've heard people say that Launchpad
uses a project group in an incorrect manner.

The fact is that this is all irrelevant, because (as Launchpad has
doen) we should do what is best for the team and the project, full
stop. We shouldn't worry about how Launchpad was or is intended to be
used.

In my opinion, the most convenient long term goal is for all of our
work to be done in the ubuntu project, and when branches can be hosted
in Launchpad on packages, and there is a more refined set of
permissions for distributions in Launchpad, I don't see why that isn't
achievable.

> Frankly, I'm beginning to wonder if you just want it your way for the sake
> of having it your way

No, that's not correct. Regardless of what you've said, I don't
actually have a massive invested interest in one solution or another.
I prefer a single project, and so far I haven't actually seen you
address the concerns I made about a project group, but it's not a big
a deal as this discussion has made it seem. I think we can live with a
project group. My real problem, as I've already said, was the *way* in
which you went about the change without discussion, and against
previously expressed wishes of the team. That genuinely disappointed
and surprised me, and I'm not just saying that for effect. Still,
you've shown no remorse for that, and I want to move on.

What I *do* strongly believe is that we need to adopt a consistent
structure among the different flavours we're documenting, because
having one solution for xubuntu and one for ubuntu, kubuntu and
edubuntu is ridiculous and confusing. Hence my invitation to the team
to express their views.

-- 
Matthew East
http://www.mdke.org
gnupg pub 1024D/0E6B06FF