Docs Team and Ubuntu Manual Project: Toward future cooperation

[Martin Owens]

Hey Matthew,

On Tue, 2010-05-18 at 08:10 +0100, Matthew East wrote:
> So I think that the answer here *is* for us all to work on
> improvements to ubuntu-doc's processes, to improve help.ubuntu.com,
> and to collaborate on material. Specifically, I think that we could
> develop a specification/blueprint around each of the perceived issues
> with ubuntu-doc that you've identified above, discuss potential
> solutions, and then implement them. 

I'm not in the manual team or the docs team, although I've been watching
both with a great deal of interest. I believe that in this instance the
Manual team fork was required, the docs team currently is not healthy
enough to support the young and energetic contributors that the manual
team has attracted and while it's great to prevent forks, forks are
healthy in the open source world. They stop things going stale which is
exactly how the docs team looks from the outside world.

It appears for all the world like a team bogged down in it's own very
heavy bureaucracy, historical and legacy technical implementation and an
old school approach to contributor involvement which is not engaging.

What we have from the docs is not sufficient, not the material nor the
social community with which the implementation is built around. What I'm
hoping is that the manual team prompt dramatic changes in at least the
writing part of the contribution cycle for which the docs team can use.

Best Regards, Martin Owens