documenting how to get source code in ubuntu-doc

Kyle Nitzsche kyle.nitzsche at canonical.com
Thu Feb 18 14:00:32 UTC 2010


Matthew East wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Thu, Jan 7, 2010 at 7:36 PM, Kyle Nitzsche
> <kyle.nitzsche at canonical.com> wrote:
>   
>> Matthew East wrote:
>>     
>>> On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 8:29 PM, Kyle Nitzsche
>>> <kyle.nitzsche at canonical.com> wrote:
>>>       
>>>> I am putting together a modification of ubuntu-docs that will explain a
>>>> bit
>>>> more about how to get source code.  While not applicable to some/most
>>>> users,
>>>> it is probably important to include it as an aspect of Ubuntu's
>>>> commitment
>>>> to open source. (At any rate, we in the OEM group would very much like to
>>>> add it.)
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> Sorry for the slow response and thanks for reminding me about the
>>> thread. I don't have a strong view on this but my instinctive reaction
>>> is that this information should probably be on the Ubuntu website,
>>> with a link to it inserted in the About Ubuntu document, rather than
>>> the material being included in the ubuntu-docs package.
>>>
>>> How do you feel about that? Do you have strong reasons to include the
>>> information on-disk?
>>>
>>>       
>> The open-source, community-developed nature of ubuntu is supported and even
>> proved by providing simple instructions within ubuntu for getting source for
>> particular packages and for the whole image.
>>
>> Whereas pointing users to an external website is a level of indirection that
>> seems inappropriate (to me) for such a core aspect of the project and its
>> culture.
>>
>> So why not, as long as it is 1) brief and 2) unobtrusive?
>>     
>
> Sorry for the delay in responding and thanks for reminding me about this thread.
>
> I don't really agree with you. I think the website is the perfect
> place for this type of information. 
Is the website localized? If not, I'd like to continue with the plan for 
inclusion in on-disk docs under advanced topics in order to be certain 
we provide accessible information to all users about the basics of 
getting source code.
> It's the place where we currentl 
> provide information about Ubuntu's philosophy, community and features.
> The free nature of Ubuntu software is explored in detail there. It's
> also the place where people find the information on how and where to
> download Ubuntu. By contrast in the desktop help system we provide
> help on how to use the software that comes with Ubuntu and I don't
> think that downloading the source code is something that Ubuntu users
> will usually want to do. It's more something that developers will want
> to do, and we don't cover that aspect in the help system.
>
> Having said that I don't really want to make a big discussion out of
> this item. If having considered the above you are still keen to
> include this somewhere, let's include it. However, I'd like to find a
> better way to do it than the one currently used because, as you noted
> yourself, it looks odd to have a list of links in the advanced-topics
> document and then a section underneath. The obvious solution is to
> create a whole new document for this subject, but that seems to me to
> be overkill. The best solution for me would be to include this
> material as a subsection somewhere in about-ubuntu, which is the only
> document which isn't actually about desktop help (indeed that's why in
> the past there has been discussion about the fact that about-ubuntu
> should really be removed in favour of the website).
>
> Let me know your thoughts.
>
>   





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