Proposed road map for ubuntu-docs

[Doug Smythies]

Hi Gunnar,

Thanks for your proposed road map.

On 2017.04.27 07:46 Gunnar Hjalmarsson wrote:

> After Jeremy raised the question about which package to use for the 
> Ubuntu documentation, we have had some discussion off-list, which ended 
> up in <https://launchpad.net/bugs/1686267>.

I saw all the bug report traffic.

> So I'd say that the working 
>hypothesis, at least for now, is that we'll keep ubuntu-docs.

I'm not entirely sure why.
To avoid duplicating effort, why not just make a link to Gnome docs
in the help.ubuntu.com 17.10 desktop help spot.
There was talk about branding and such, but why bother?

> Now, the name of the package is not really the most important aspect. 
> But the ubuntu-docs Bazaar branch is a handy tool, where all the docs 
> pages reside, and from which we up to now have built both the 
> ubuntu-docs package which is installed locally and the HTML version 
> which is published at help.ubuntu.com. My hope is that we won't 
> unnecessarily change that workflow.

Why have any workflow at all? Why not just use the Gnome stuff as is.

> So, what will be new? Most of the ubuntu-docs pages already origin from 
> GNOME Help. This will obviously be even more true in Ubuntu 17.10, and 
> the need for Ubuntu specific customization will be significantly 
> reduced.

Why not set the objective of eliminated entirely rather than "reduced".

> The Unity specific pages will simply be dropped.
>
> My idea is to fork the applicable version of the GNOME Help .page files, 
> and as a first step replace the current pages in ubuntu-docs with the 
> GNOME Help pages. That will give us this initial structure:
> 
> https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/3.24/
>
> Then we should identify which of the current Ubuntu specific pages that 
> make sense to keep, and make the necessary changes to integrate those 
> pages into the structure.
> 
> Since the upstream GNOME Help pages will make up most of ubuntu-docs, 
> and the GNOME desktop environment tend to change faster than what has 
> been the case with Unity 7 in the past few cycles, it's important that 
> we don't make it difficult to update to new page versions by forking 
> again. This means that we should avoid to make Ubuntu adjustments to the 
> GNOME pages. Instead, if we identify room for improvements, we should at 
> first hand work with the GNOME folks and propose upstream changes.

Agree.

> As regards translations, at this time I think it makes sense to keep the 
> Launchpad interface (the ubuntu-help translation domain). The GNOME Help 
> pages have been translated upstream, and my intention is to try to 
> somehow import those translations to Launchpad, so the translators don't 
> need to redo the work. This will probably need some manual fiddling - 
> can't tell exactly how at the moment.

Again, why bother? Why not just use their stuff as is.

> What do you all think? Does this sound as a sensible synopsis of a road map?