One set of documentation needs to go

[Peter Matulis]

On 10/09/2013 12:20 AM, Elizabeth Krumbach Joseph wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 8, 2013 at 4:05 PM, Peter Matulis
> <peter.matulis at canonical.com> wrote:
>> And no idea why we also need the "Ubuntu Manual".  See thread in this list:
> 
> As an outside observer over the years, here's how I recall the history:
> 
> The Ubuntu Doc team always had a pretty high barrier to entry. Indeed,
> in spite of the Herculean efforts of the core contributors throughout
> the years it did become a project known for being difficult to get
> involved with.

Hi Elizabeth,

It always seems to come down to this.  We discussed it during a Server
Guide UDS session a few months ago but, as always, nothing specific came
out of it.

With the Server Guide [1], if people do not want to follow the
step-by-step described Launchpad method, we say to simply open a bug
(link provided) and include your contribution there.  Most server people
are ok with that.

> So the Ubuntu Manual team was formed to:
> 
> 1. Create a book-form of documentation that could be printed and
> distributed as PDF (I brought several paper copies of with with me
> when I did the work in Ghana and we shipped the PDF version with every
> PC).

The Server Guide is available in PDF.  What is blocking the Desktop Guide?

> 2. Be easier to contribute to. Documentation is never easy and you do
> need to learn formatting and such, but they have created a clear on
> ramp for contributors of various types and our Desktop documentation
> team can learn a lot from them. Indeed - the idea for having a Google
> Spreadsheet for tracking reviews this cycle came directly from them.

I looked at ubuntu-manual.org and I was surprised to learn that the
project uses pretty much the same workflow/toolset as the traditional
Ubuntu docs (Launchpad, SSH, bzr, make).  I now realize that its
differences are really Desktop-centric (display of
graphics/screenshots).  The general impression of the project site is
also more warm and welcoming than the traditional stuff.

To whom it concerns: Can we agree that this will remain primarily a
Desktop guide?

> I do agree that there is an unfortunate division of effort right now
> for very similar things. Now that we've grown interest back up in the
> doc team I look forward to pursuing collaboration opportunities.
> Having Kevin here working on both projects is a fantastic start.

What is stopping us from using the Manual solely for Desktop documentation?

~pmatulis

[1]:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DocumentationTeam/SystemDocumentation/UbuntuServerGuide