SRUing the documentation

[Doug Smythies]

On 2017.05.08 08:52 Christian Ehrhardt wrote:

> Hi Documentation team,

Hi,

> we in the Server Team were wondering how we should handle issues where
> content in the serverguide would lead the users into issues.
>
> In the current case [1] the guide essentially misses a step and everyone
> following it will run into the same issue. The "fix" can't really be made
> in a programatic way so we would like to open a bug and push it into a
> refreshed serverguide.

The main issue with the Ubuntu Serverguide is, and always has been,
contributions from subject matter experts.

By all means, please do submit fixes for the issue you referred to.

> Yet OTOH myself and a few others on the chat remembered that you have only
> limited doc "release" dates and outside of those you usually will not
> upload new content.

That is true, but mainly due to resource shortages.

> We naively (you know non Doc experts) discussed and wondered if for
> refreshing the serverguide an "SRU spirit" [1] should apply.

Because the Ubuntu Serverguide is not a released package, the standard
SRU process does not apply. This is documented here:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DocumentationTeam/SystemDocumentation/BuildingDocumentation
under the section on "Updating help.ubuntu.com"

> So surely not
> every line changed shall be pushed in between LTS'es, but everything that
> is a real bug that can be solved this way should be able to be updated in
> our opinion.

Yes. Agreed.

> We called it "SRU spirit" as certainly extra requirements
> apply to push those, like
> - important change
> - double checked against regressions e.g. not something only working on a
> newer release than the LTS
> - getting some extra reviews + signoffs + discussion preferably via a bug
> linking to a serverguide merge proposal

We also have a standing commitment with the translators, and will do an
update publication anytime they ask for it. (They never have.) 

> So given we have a current case we'd like to fix there, how could we
> proceed to get a DSRU (Doc Stable Release Update)?

Procedure: For the 16.04 Ubuntu Serverguide, just tell me when you want an
update publication done and I'll do it, after say about a 2 week string freeze
and translation catch up window**. For the 14.04 Serverguide, it would have to be
an important update, as typically, and only speaking for myself, I don't bother
with the older LTS versions.

In my opinion, another very important update for the Serverguide is updates.
They seems to happen now by themselves, even if one asks for them not to during
installation. Kernels now seem to get deleted by themselves. What is going on and how
to document it? See [3][4].
 
> [1]: http://paste.ubuntu.com/24536348/
> [2]: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates#When

[3]: https://bugs.launchpad.net/serverguide/+bug/1031091
[4]: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/debian-installer/+bug/1647790

** There seems to be a growing consensus that translations are less
important for the serverguide and that even Server admins whose first language
is not English actually prefer the English Serverguide. In which case, we could consider
to publish the master U.S. English Serverguide whenever we want, with no translation delay.

... Doug