Mallard: Collaborate or Not?

[Richard JOHNSON]

On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 11:38:13AM -0600, Thomas R. Jones wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> I think it has really became obvious that there is a division between
> members of this mailinglist with regards to Mallard. After much review
> and deliberation I think there are only two avenues from which to
> proceed at this time:

I must be blind because I am not seeing a division of either the members of
the mailing list nor a division among people who contribute documentation.

> 1. Full acceptance of Mallard and implementation of it into Ubuntu. This
> would require all authors to discontinue development in any other
> formats. Including myself as a proponent.
> 
> 2. Fork the two groups in the development repository. The original
> documentation resources separate from the new mallard sources. This
> allows both camps to proceed in their own respective directions.
> 
> It has become fairly obvious that a few members are attempting to
> strong-arm this project into acceptance by the community. There is no
> chance that these two or three individuals will accept the community
> opinion that we simply do not want to implement mallard at this time.
> The dissension and valid points against Mallard are either disregarded
> or counter-discussed with references completely irrelevant to the topic
> at hand.

No strong-arming around here. I think this could be an issue that could be
brought up in a vote possibly for people who contribute to the
documentation. If people who do contribute to the documentation are split,
or there are indifferences, than a vote makes sense. This is how we have
always decided things, even when we did the topic based help switch a
couple of years ago. I think the discussions there were a bit more heated
than anything I have seen yet with the Mallard talk.

> Personally, I think it is a sad display of ethics. Community should
> always come before personal projects. It is increasingly noticeable to
> see that Mallard has become a project from which these individuals can
> garner favoritism or personal recognition within the Ubuntu community.
> Inflate the ego of a few ---- at the expense of the community. It is sad
> ---- it truly is.
> 
> However, this is an open source community. Even trolls found in the
> forums are allowed the ability to present their opinions. With that in
> mind, it is soon coming to light that a decision must be made. The
> attempt to allow the community time to make a final decision, the
> attempt to beta test the competing camps; have all been tossed aside and
> disregarded. So there cannot be a concession or opportunity to come to
> an amicable agreement about the Mallard project. Plain and simple.
> 
> We have to decide one way or the other. Personally, this has left a bad
> taste in my mouth with regards to contributing any further towards the
> goal of helping the Ubuntu community through the documentation
> resources.

I am quite lost here and saddened that you feel that way. Let me explain
myself here so I don't seem biased on the point.

I am a Kubuntu and KDE developer, so that means I don't use Ubuntu or GNOME
at least on a regular basis. I do not contribute to the ubuntu-docs, and
don't think I ever have, though cia.vc seems to think I have. Shaun, a
leader in the GNOME community, has come up with this new standard. I think
Shaun will tell you, that when he originally stated this, a few years ago
now, I called it vaporware and not yet another documenting language. I was
actually against Mallard and everything. And plus we have this big KDE and
GNOME, evil enemies deal as well. After not only talking with Shaun and
other leaders in the KDE community, my eyes were opened a bit. We at KDE
want to go with topic-based in the future, and Mallard will help us with
that. Shaun has reached out to the KDE community for collaboration. We are
a hell of a lot slower at implementing, actually we haven't even started
nor really discussed the implementation, but we know we will do it one of
these days (hopefully sooner than later).

So, I just went through the list of contributors and uploaders, and from
what I could tell, none of them were against it. Seeing as you said that it
has left a bad taste in your mouth in regards to contributing, can you
explain exactly how you are contributing to documentation when your LP page
says you aren't a contributor nor an uploader? The only one I saw that was
against such a change was you, and if you were directly contributing to
ubuntu-docs, that doesn't make it a split in people who are for or against
it.

-- 
 Name|  Richard JOHNSON
Title|  Developer
  WWW|  http://www.ubuntu.com
Email|  nixternal at ubuntu.com
GnuPG|  3578 0981 A21D D662 2A96  7623 F4C1 838C D8C4 4738
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