Proposal: Create product for each derivative's documentation

[Marc Kaplan]

I completely agree that the list has been quiet for a while and I am
glad to see the activity that has been going on lately.

In all honesty, I have to keep wondering why we have separate
documentation for each ¨branch¨ such as Edubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu,
Mythbuntu, Ubuntu Studio, etc...

This has been something that has been bothering me ever since I
revamped the Teams section:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Teams

Personally, I think of Ubuntu as the physical Linux Distribution as a
version of Debian.  I do not see it as the ¨GNOME¨ version of the
distro.  Each of these different flavors are mostly devoted to
individual preferences.  From my point of view, our documentation
should be treated as a big family repository of documentation, and not
isolate on one particular core over another.

Please understand I am not referring to tracking bug fixes, or
launchpad teams, or DocBook versions, I am cutting to the heart of the
entire life, not just of our documentation, but the distro as a whole.
 I honestly believe that we can help nudge/guide the direction of the
entire life of the distro if we can be an example of cohesion to the
other teams.  Instead of focusing on why each version is different, we
should be focusing on the similarities.

My specialty is helping to see the overall picture of organization for
the wiki and trying to help establish an overall picture so it does
not lose focus.  A while back, I worked with Matt and the rest of the
team to help bring a logical flow to our Documentation Team docs to
help make it easier for new members to get started.  I tied all the
¨Team¨ docs together in a neat little package.  But if you still go
throughout the wiki, each ¨Team¨, each version, each everything is in
their own little world.

In all honesty, before we can bring this cohesiveness to our online
documentation, I think we first need to bring a consistency to our own
internal Documentation.  Develop a dialog between the other teams to
come up with a unified look and feel within the Team Wiki.  They can
do what they want within their own subpages, but the main team pages
should all look similar, have roughly the same amount of information,
and follow a standardized hierarchical linkage structure.

Yes, I am sure that I might be ¨a bit out there¨ for thinking that
everyone will be willing to play nice, share their toys, and not
complain, but I am a visionary.  I have a vision for a larger picture
and this is the first step.

So, what do you think?

BTW- If you think this is ambitious, just wait till you see what I am
working on to propose.....