Proposed road map for ubuntu-docs

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

On 2017-04-28 16:52, Doug Smythies wrote:
> Hi Gunnar,
>
> Thanks for your proposed road map.

Thanks for challenging it. ;)

> On 2017.04.27 07:46 Gunnar Hjalmarsson wrote:
>> 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?

Hannie asked approximately the same question.

There is apparently no right or wrong way to look at this. Basically 
it's all about the level of ambition with the Ubuntu desktop docs.

Yes, coming Ubuntu will be based on the GNOME desktop environment. But 
the Ubuntu desktop distribution will still not be exactly equivalent to 
the standard GNOME desktop, and even if we don't know yet how they will 
differ, my idea is to keep a door open for customizing the desktop guide 
to reflect the Ubuntu desktop distribution.

Some things which come to mind (probably since I have been personally 
involved in those areas) are:

* The Ubuntu guide has a section about installing software from the 
Ubuntu archive, PPAs and other repositories. I think that section will 
be motivated also going forward.

* Ubuntu makes the Adobe Flash plugins conveniently available in the 
archive, and one of the pages describes that (unlike the GNOME equivalent).

* Ubuntu makes it easy to use other advanced input methods but IBus, and 
it's briefly explained in the desktop guide. GNOME does intentionally 
not do so.

* If Ubuntu keeps using LightDM (instead of GDM), we'll keep having a 
guest session feature, which is currently described briefly in the docs.

Those are some offhand items; there is most certainly more.

I'm volunteering to do a quick-and-dirty initial setup along the lines 
described in my previous message. (Not sure about the "quick" part of 
it, though...) It may be easier to discuss the pros and cons more 
specifically with that setup available.

It's true that doing this will result in maintenance work with the 
desktop guide also going forward. Is it worth it? To be honest I'm not 
sure. OTOH I'm not asking for an irreversible decision, only that we 
give it a try.

If we later would conclude that it will cause too much work, we have the 
option to fall back to GNOME Help at any time, let the users figure out 
the rest themselves via various online resources, and discontinue the 
desktop docs team.

Would there be a middle way? I don't know.

-- 
Gunnar Hjalmarsson
https://launchpad.net/~gunnarhj