We do have a formal review process, and sometimes we have to pull the plug on documents containing factual erreors. The review process is handled by volunteers and coordinated by Tabatha - feel free to join them.
If you find some documents are missing, why don't you take one yourself? You certainly have more free time to give to the LDP than most authors who maintain 4 documents each.
Need drivers for these mice? I have such a mouse that's perfectly working with GNU/Linux, and I do still have the IBM driver CD.
Feel free to email me. I too love that mouse and it easy to use scrollpoint. Wish I had a left handed trackball with a scrollpoint *and* 2 additional buttons for my own remapping (move to next/prev desktop). And of course that I could use it with GNU/Linux !
The battery life is not a problem - you can fit in a 5600 battery after doing some shaving;-) Just go to the Zaurus C700 hardware forum.
Regarding the low memory, some of us are trying to upgrade it to 64M. The problem is not hardware now (read - hardware hackersl could replace the 32M of RAM by a 64M chip) but software. We are trying to make the XScale recognize that much RAM. It may involve kernel and bootloader hacking since the easy solutions like mem=64 did not work. Any help is welcome.
And for those who may say the CPU is too slow, I personally did overclock mine to ~450 Mhz, and the RAM to ~150Mhz.No problem of any kind. I did also enable the Cache (disabled by default by Sharp for a risk of bug on some hardware revisions) so I can now play divx full screen at 20 fps without any problem. It is certainly better than carrying a huge laptop in the plane!
I just need the bigger 5600 (b500) battery a friend is bringing back from Japan and I'll be most happy with my Zaurus C700 PDA;-)
PS: if you want to get one, check the C700 FAQ. We are filling it with tips from the forum.
I currently have one C700 sitting on my desktop for a review. I also have a Sony Clié SJ20 (for old palm medical ebooks I can not read on the Zaurus due to DRM - no matter I *purchased* them I can't legally do what I want with them but that's another story) and a SL 5500. I also had a SL 5000d before, a Clié NR 70, a Clié 760 and various Visors.
The C700 is a killer - first it feels so cool! I can't remember being so impressed by a PDA except maybe by the Clié 760 which was really innovative for its time. The C700 can really hold in your shirt pocket - honnestly it's as small as the smallest clié available only a little wider. The screen is a pure marvel - forget the cliés or the ipaqs. I know I don't need color but when you see such a beautiful screen you realise can't live without it.. Just plug your CF in and show your digital pics to your friend on a real screen ! Or use the embedded web browser which can load real websites (no downgraded avantgo like stuff), uqtreader (http://www.timwentford.uklinux.net/) to read offline channels or P.Gutemberg ebooks,...
The keyboard is big enought for real typing and the battery life is not a problem (~ 4h in a row? That's more than most color palms and pocket pcs!) since the charger is as big as a tic tac box. And I can afford a spare battery and an external charger if I really need ~8 h in a row.
The real problem is that most software written for the 5500 uses fixed sizes in pixels for a 240x340 screen - that does not scale well on a 640x480. Layouts *should* be used !!! And the emulation for 240x340 takes ~5 sec to load - forever if you need the application *now*. That's not a problem since most 5500 apps are GPL'ed so you can fix the code but if you are using poorly written commercial software on your 5500 forget it !
Moreover the memory is somehow limited : you can't launch many apps at the same time, especially memory hogs like java applications.
It is really promising once a) more software will be ported or cleanly coded and b) opie (http://www.opie.info) will be ported, allowing to put the root filesystem on a SD card thus keeping the while 64M of memory for the system.
If you have $700, if you don't mind replacing the pim by other software (PC syncs sucks - and for some reason they decided to drop the XML format from the PIM) do yourself a favor a get one. In some weeks you will be able to use Opie free software distribution and get the real power out of this baby!
Please check my C700 forum http://externe.net/zaurus/forum if you have one and need some help.
I'm studying medicine in France (entering my 6th and final year - studies are a bit longer here), running my company (running various website like thera.info and free software consulting), managing several opensource projects (the LDP on tldp.org) and keeping time for my girlfriend (khady.net) and my passion (movies)
How can I do that? Quite simple: I closely manage my time. A palm or other PDA is obviously needed. Give a time slot for everything that needs one. Don't be afraid to spend 15 to 30 minutes per day on scheduling if you have many things to do that day. Get the work done - that's your goal. Scheduling is a way. Cutting in the unneeded is a good complement (do you really need to watch TV? Do you really need to attend that stupid class? Do you really need to do this 1'000 contract?)
Every morning, I go to the hospital (7-12). Every afternoon, I either study or work. (1-8)
Every night (9-11), I go and see a movie or stay with my significant other.
Sounds simple? It's not. The hardest part is mixing studies and work. You *have* to be selective. I can not offer to spend time going to classes. I study in my books, and I pratice what I've been studying in the morning. A good book is worth hours of classes. If they are not mandatory and you can do your exams without going to some classes, skip them. Your goal is to *learn*, not spend time at lectures. You know the subject? Go and do something else. Work, studies, or private. But be honest - don't just skip classes. Go to the ones you need to increase your knowledge.
You also have to be very selective for your work. I don't take a contract if I'm not sure I can efficiently do it and make a profit. That means I must know the topic (say, network administration) and have a backup solution (a friend I'll pay if some exam is suddently scheduled) so that the contract will be done. The client satisfaction is #1 priority. Financial profit is #2.
Now your private life. The previous post is very right : you must sleep well. Don't cut on sleep. Take naps if it helps. If you are tired you are unefficient. While other people may afford that, you can't because you have too many things to manage. You can take one day off every week as suggested, or take every night depending on your work load. I just did 3 weeks in a row (no nights) so I'm now taking 2 days.
Finally, be sure to love and understand your partner. Explain what you are doing and how. Explain when you are available. And surprise her! Finding free time when you thought you couldn't is good. Using that time to offer flowers or unexpected vacation is better;-)
Until now, it has been working fine. The first months where the hardest- and then I just had work, free software and studies. Gradually I managed to add stuff, little by little. And I even found time to do a MS in biological sciences!
What works for me may not work for you, but email me privately (slashdot@externe.net) if you need some help.
I think 90% of the work will be cataloging. But If I feed some truely excellent book with chapter1 (GPL) chapter 2 (BSD), chapter 3 (non free stuff, like no commercial redistribution, no reprinting) yes I think *that one( would deserve a rewrite if the overall book is a sucess with the users.
That should not happen too ofter, but it's a possibility. In that case rewriting would help. Rewriting will require time, effort and maybe money, so only a handful of documents may deserve that.
BTW I don't think I have an history of elitism at the LDP. I did accept and thanked every contributor. I will try to do the same with GNU documentation. They're not bigot, they just sometimes too firmly believe in free software.
God I'm loosing too much time trying to explain my poorly written article. Sorry if I was not clear enough I will have more information on the website ASAP. Anyway if you like the idea, feel free to email me privately. Every volunteer means one more chance of success. I really want to do something good for free software documentation.
One last time - this is *not* duplication! I'm currently the LDP coordinator. I'm not doing that inside the LDP because I don't think that's the good place to do it.
The LDP already has a good catalog on gldp.org - I would like to provide the same service (and more) to other documentation.
That means cataloging. That means a meta project, unless you want everybody to join the LDP. Dont forget there're other projects out there (not a lot alas - and don't talk about the dead OSWG).
If I had pursued this project as a "LDP project" it may have been considered a kind of assimilation of the other projets. It would have introduced artificial competition and would have been redundant with other documentation projects.
A meta projects means everyone stays free, since it is not going to be in competition with anything. I prefer to go that way.
Debian may have a good resposability in the problem, but we are the ones who sticked to the LDPL.
I had no problem with the license, in fact I really enjoyed it. But people at Debian didn't.
I don't want to go in a license war - let them say which license they best like and I will A) try to be happy with that and b) forget what they did.
The idea behing the GWM is also to define what is acceptable as a free documentation license, so that other project (KDP, GDP) will not have the same problems the LDP had.
Everything will be automatic. The idea is you give us a URL from which we can pull your document.
We do centralise documents on one website because even if you think an additional repository is a "problem", it helps.
Nobody should have to go to 10 different places to try to find one document. Everything can be found from one place. When you want to get new software, do you go to sourceforge.net/freshmeat.net or some guy's obscure website?
Answer: you do both. You find the guy's website with sourceforge.net/freshmeat.net. There's an advantage with sf.net : if the website is down or if the coder move, you still have a mirrored copy on sf.net.
Currently, I receive a message every day from the LDP updates scripts. Most of the messages are about "relicensed documentation". So yes, it worked and the problem is being solved.
But I must agree with you, we did it the bad way. Ideally, Debian wouldn't have had a problem with the LDPL, the LDP would have been very happy with it and it would be such a perfect world.
But it isn't. So this time, even if is is unlikeley, I want to be sure that documentation license problems won't ever happen again. That's whay the GWM is about. We are just going to *catalog* the documents and *say* what license covers them.
No big deal. No ultimatum. If you are making your homemade non-GNU linux "No GNU No GPL" distro (good luck finding a kernel and compilator) you can discard the documents released under the GPL just by checking them on our website. Same if you don't like the BSD license or any other license.
We will just let you know which licenses are covering which documentation. It is just going to be a service, not an obligation. If you just don't care about licenses, don't check. Just consider the GWM as a "one stop" for free software documentation, from LDP to Gnome.
"Linux for the mentally disabled" ? Defitively not politically correct but I love the name.
Man, that's going to be the title of my next document. Hey, people are *purchasing* linux for dummies, so they have no self esteem problem. That means they can as well come and read my presentation of GNU/Linux;-)
Thanks a lot for your support. Every volunteer is welcome. Currently I do not plan to consolidate metadocuments or dictate a consistent style.
We will just take whatever poeple are writing. Then the users will rate the documents àla slashdot moderation, so the best documents can emerge from the mass.
Then if we find some specific topic has no good document (say UUCP - I like my HOWTO but maybe people don't like it) we can commit ressources to produce that very document.
There is only one requirement for a document to enter the GWM - it will have to be available under a free license. The choice of the "free license" is yours. There are lots of guidelines already exisiting. If people come with strange homemade licenses (for ex. forbidding commercial redistribution) we may publish a list of existing compatible licenses and requirements for a license to be considered "free".
You perfectly understand what I will try to acheive.
I'm not into the license wars - as long as it is free (as freedom) we will catalog it. We are mostly interested in free software but other documents, like project gutenberg books will also welcome.
Currently we are trying to find all the free documents available on the web, so comments like yours are very helpful. Do not hesitate to contact me if you know other places where one can find good documents.
The GWM *is* about building a centralized point of distribution for documentation, a one stop "shop" (forgive me for this word;-)
There is no documentation sourceforge or freshmeat. Once we will have done that, we may try to raise funds, help with the rewritings, etc.
The GWM will be a meta organisation providing a catalog of free documentation. That's not reinventing the wheel.
Alas, the OSWG died of a slow and painful death - here's the death certificate BTW : http://www.oswg.org/.
The LDP is just about writing documentation. If you add the BSD doc proj., the GNOME doc. proj and the KDE doc proj you have 99% of the documentation that's currently produced.
The OSWG did try to become a meta-documentation project. It failed. Too bad. But we still need some kind of organisation around the documentation projects, for exemple to sponsor authors, decide common documentation formats or rewrite non-free or bad documentation, etc.
Just consider the free software world and the number of organisations (LPI, GNU, Open something) which try to support individual projects.
Now consider the free documentation world, where there is *only* 4 significant projects, and no meta organisation *at all*.
It's not about fragmentation or waisting effort- it's the beggining of a collaborative work. If the LDP, the GDP, the LDP and BSD doc. want to build bridges, we (GWM) will be there to help them. If they don't, we will still collect documentation and try to combine the fruit of they effort.
That's the beauty of free software - you can build on someone else's work.
Alas, I'm not the one who decices. No I didn't wake up someday and said to myself "let's use a non free license to piss off debian people". We had a license. We decided to use it. Then we had a problem - I'm just doing my best to work around it.
Here we have a license problem (you read the Debian story did you? Hmm? Yes I know that's slashdot:-) I didn't make it up. It is really a problem. Debian was going to move most of the LDP documents out of its main tree. We did everything in a hurry and it's now (mostly) fixed. But *prevention* is better - I'd rather have avoided this problem altogether!
In the imaginary problem you present, rewriting all the manpages doesn't sound like a good solution. It would also be counterproductive since most of them are available under a free license.
Which aren't? There you will need the GWM. We will be able to tell precisely which document is not free (free={GPL,FDL,BSD,OPL...}) and then we can rewrite that very document.
The bad solution is forgetting the license problem until it finds you.
It will take time. I would love to raise funds and distribute them to writers to help producing better documentation. This is the long term goal. Currently, we will just map what's available. Then if people are interested
We already accept donations - if you did read and enjoyed one of our documents, give a little to the LDP (contant webmaster@ibiblio.org - we receive donations through ibiblio) or the GNU project (gnu.org)
The money is spend wisely - recently we paid the shipping free to send donated books to Africa and Brasil.
Re:My opinion: no one do any changing
on
The LDP and Debian
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· Score: 1
I did also really enjoy the LDPL - it protected the reader before the author by ensuring the changes would always be available for anyone. Have you ever heard of the GPL loophole for web apps? We had the equivalent loophole in documentation fixed by 1998!
Anyway we decided by 1999 to rewrite and enhance it. David Lawyer was in charge of the license. Some time after he started submitting new versions, I got in touch with the FSF (can't remember who made the first step) who was going to write a documentation license.
RMS was really interested in a specific license for documentation and provided the FDL, based on many concept we wanted to or had already introduced in the new LDPL. I was just dreaming of a license which could be applied to any document and didn't care if it was our baby of the FSF's.
The LDP had a important role in the FDL creation. It was also submited many times to our authors and their feedback was integrated in the license. We are very pleased by the licenses now available - the existing FDL and the OPL v1 when option A and B are not exerted.
So now I'm very sad all this is happening and we just have 2 days to fix the problem. This deadline is unrealistic. Honnestly, would the LDPL destroy "free software spirit" if it was allowed to stay in the free section for another debian version? Do anyone think contacting 2/3 of our authors in a mere couple of days (uh oh- only 1 day left) is easy? (hint: I have a life and work to do. The work I do at the LDP brings $0) And anyway, should documentation abide to Software guidelines ?
Sorry if this rant sounds harsh. I'm one of these "free software zealots" who only install free software, GPL'ed if possible. I do anything I can for free software. It eats all my free time.
Then for a license which is indeed free, we are blackmailed and asked to move to another license we helped designing?????? I would never ever have imagined that. Maybe I should install a BSD on one of my machines tomorrow:->
Slashdot Mirror
We do have a formal review process, and sometimes we have to pull the plug on documents containing factual erreors. The review process is handled by volunteers and coordinated by Tabatha - feel free to join them.
If you find some documents are missing, why don't you take one yourself? You certainly have more free time to give to the LDP than most authors who maintain 4 documents each.
Need drivers for these mice? I have such a mouse that's perfectly working with GNU/Linux, and I do still have the IBM driver CD.
Feel free to email me. I too love that mouse and it easy to use scrollpoint. Wish I had a left handed trackball with a scrollpoint *and* 2 additional buttons for my own remapping (move to next/prev desktop). And of course that I could use it with GNU/Linux !
Guylhem
You can also see the Zaurus forums on http://externe.net/zaurus/forum
I hope you'll like my review. Expect new reviews for the new models soon :-)
Meanwhile, if you are the happy owner of a C700 and need some help, go to http://externe.net/zaurus/forum
I'll have to rename it to 7xx I guess - who knows what may come next !
Regarding the low memory, some of us are trying to upgrade it to 64M. The problem is not hardware now (read - hardware hackersl could replace the 32M of RAM by a 64M chip) but software. We are trying to make the XScale recognize that much RAM. It may involve kernel and bootloader hacking since the easy solutions like mem=64 did not work. Any help is welcome.
And for those who may say the CPU is too slow, I personally did overclock mine to ~450 Mhz, and the RAM to ~150Mhz.No problem of any kind. I did also enable the Cache (disabled by default by Sharp for a risk of bug on some hardware revisions) so I can now play divx full screen at 20 fps without any problem. It is certainly better than carrying a huge laptop in the plane!
I just need the bigger 5600 (b500) battery a friend is bringing back from Japan and I'll be most happy with my Zaurus C700 PDA ;-)
PS: if you want to get one, check the C700 FAQ. We are filling it with tips from the forum.
I currently have one C700 sitting on my desktop for a review. I also have a Sony Clié SJ20 (for old palm medical ebooks I can not read on the Zaurus due to DRM - no matter I *purchased* them I can't legally do what I want with them but that's another story) and a SL 5500. I also had a SL 5000d before, a Clié NR 70, a Clié 760 and various Visors.
...
The C700 is a killer - first it feels so cool! I can't remember being so impressed by a PDA except maybe by the Clié 760 which was really innovative for its time. The C700 can really hold in your shirt pocket - honnestly it's as small as the smallest clié available only a little wider. The screen is a pure marvel - forget the cliés or the ipaqs. I know I don't need color but when you see such a beautiful screen you realise can't live without it.. Just plug your CF in and show your digital pics to your friend on a real screen ! Or use the embedded web browser which can load real websites (no downgraded avantgo like stuff), uqtreader (http://www.timwentford.uklinux.net/) to read offline channels or P.Gutemberg ebooks,
The keyboard is big enought for real typing and the battery life is not a problem (~ 4h in a row? That's more than most color palms and pocket pcs!) since the charger is as big as a tic tac box. And I can afford a spare battery and an external charger if I really need ~8 h in a row.
The real problem is that most software written for the 5500 uses fixed sizes in pixels for a 240x340 screen - that does not scale well on a 640x480. Layouts *should* be used !!! And the emulation for 240x340 takes ~5 sec to load - forever if you need the application *now*. That's not a problem since most 5500 apps are GPL'ed so you can fix the code but if you are using poorly written commercial software on your 5500 forget it !
Moreover the memory is somehow limited : you can't launch many apps at the same time, especially memory hogs like java applications.
It is really promising once a) more software will be ported or cleanly coded and b) opie (http://www.opie.info) will be ported, allowing to put the root filesystem on a SD card thus keeping the while 64M of memory for the system.
If you have $700, if you don't mind replacing the pim by other software (PC syncs sucks - and for some reason they decided to drop the XML format from the PIM) do yourself a favor a get one. In some weeks you will be able to use Opie free software distribution and get the real power out of this baby!
Please check my C700 forum http://externe.net/zaurus/forum if you have one and need some help.
Guylhem
Yep. At the hospital with a net access and no patients, I take some time to read slashdot.
Why shouldn't I? And I'd be very happy to help that guy do the same. Managing time is hard.
Since you have to do an additional 3 to 4 year of residency after your 6 years of studies.
~ 10 y ago, studies only lasted 6 years. No residency for family medicine
Mixing classes is not the best idea.
;-)
I'm studying medicine in France (entering my 6th and final year - studies are a bit longer here), running my company (running various website like thera.info and free software consulting), managing several opensource projects (the LDP on tldp.org) and keeping time for my girlfriend (khady.net) and my passion (movies)
How can I do that? Quite simple: I closely manage my time. A palm or other PDA is obviously needed. Give a time slot for everything that needs one. Don't be afraid to spend 15 to 30 minutes per day on scheduling if you have many things to do that day. Get the work done - that's your goal. Scheduling is a way. Cutting in the unneeded is a good complement (do you really need to watch TV? Do you really need to attend that stupid class? Do you really need to do this 1'000 contract?)
Every morning, I go to the hospital (7-12). Every afternoon, I either study or work. (1-8)
Every night (9-11), I go and see a movie or stay with my significant other.
Sounds simple? It's not. The hardest part is mixing studies and work. You *have* to be selective. I can not offer to spend time going to classes. I study in my books, and I pratice what I've been studying in the morning. A good book is worth hours of classes. If they are not mandatory and you can do your exams without going to some classes, skip them. Your goal is to *learn*, not spend time at lectures. You know the subject? Go and do something else. Work, studies, or private. But be honest - don't just skip classes. Go to the ones you need to increase your knowledge.
You also have to be very selective for your work. I don't take a contract if I'm not sure I can efficiently do it and make a profit. That means I must know the topic (say, network administration) and have a backup solution (a friend I'll pay if some exam is suddently scheduled) so that the contract will be done. The client satisfaction is #1 priority. Financial profit is #2.
Now your private life. The previous post is very right : you must sleep well. Don't cut on sleep. Take naps if it helps. If you are tired you are unefficient. While other people may afford that, you can't because you have too many things to manage. You can take one day off every week as suggested, or take every night depending on your work load. I just did 3 weeks in a row (no nights) so I'm now taking 2 days.
Finally, be sure to love and understand your partner. Explain what you are doing and how. Explain when you are available. And surprise her! Finding free time when you thought you couldn't is good. Using that time to offer flowers or unexpected vacation is better
Until now, it has been working fine. The first months where the hardest- and then I just had work, free software and studies. Gradually I managed to add stuff, little by little. And I even found time to do a MS in biological sciences!
What works for me may not work for you, but email me privately (slashdot@externe.net) if you need some help.
What else can I say ;-)
I think 90% of the work will be cataloging. But If I feed some truely excellent book with chapter1 (GPL) chapter 2 (BSD), chapter 3 (non free stuff, like no commercial redistribution, no reprinting) yes I think *that one( would deserve a rewrite if the overall book is a sucess with the users.
That should not happen too ofter, but it's a possibility. In that case rewriting would help. Rewriting will require time, effort and maybe money, so only a handful of documents may deserve that.
BTW I don't think I have an history of elitism at the LDP. I did accept and thanked every contributor. I will try to do the same with GNU documentation. They're not bigot, they just sometimes too firmly believe in free software.
God I'm loosing too much time trying to explain my poorly written article. Sorry if I was not clear enough I will have more information on the website ASAP. Anyway if you like the idea, feel free to email me privately. Every volunteer means one more chance of success. I really want to do something good for free software documentation.
One last time - this is *not* duplication! I'm currently the LDP coordinator. I'm not doing that inside the LDP because I don't think that's the good place to do it.
The LDP already has a good catalog on gldp.org - I would like to provide the same service (and more) to other documentation.
That means cataloging. That means a meta project, unless you want everybody to join the LDP. Dont forget there're other projects out there (not a lot alas - and don't talk about the dead OSWG).
If I had pursued this project as a "LDP project" it may have been considered a kind of assimilation of the other projets. It would have introduced artificial competition and would have been redundant with other documentation projects.
A meta projects means everyone stays free, since it is not going to be in competition with anything. I prefer to go that way.
Guylhem
linuxdoc.org
gnu.org/doc
Not only FDL compatible licenses or just documentation licenses- all free licenses.
The GPL, the BSD license, the OPL for exemple will be perfectly fine.
But anyway you got my point - the project will be a kind of sourceforge for documentation.
Debian may have a good resposability in the problem, but we are the ones who sticked to the LDPL.
I had no problem with the license, in fact I really enjoyed it. But people at Debian didn't.
I don't want to go in a license war - let them say which license they best like and I will A) try to be happy with that and b) forget what they did.
The idea behing the GWM is also to define what is acceptable as a free documentation license, so that other project (KDP, GDP) will not have the same problems the LDP had.
Everything will be automatic. The idea is you give us a URL from which we can pull your document.
We do centralise documents on one website because even if you think an additional repository is a "problem", it helps.
Nobody should have to go to 10 different places to try to find one document. Everything can be found from one place. When you want to get new software, do you go to sourceforge.net/freshmeat.net or some guy's obscure website?
Answer: you do both. You find the guy's website with sourceforge.net/freshmeat.net. There's an advantage with sf.net : if the website is down or if the coder move, you still have a mirrored copy on sf.net.
It may come a time when the GWM will receive enough donation to be able to pay authors to produce free software books.
We are well intentioned and may change that situation.
Currently, I receive a message every day from the LDP updates scripts. Most of the messages are about "relicensed documentation". So yes, it worked and the problem is being solved.
But I must agree with you, we did it the bad way. Ideally, Debian wouldn't have had a problem with the LDPL, the LDP would have been very happy with it and it would be such a perfect world.
But it isn't. So this time, even if is is unlikeley, I want to be sure that documentation license problems won't ever happen again. That's whay the GWM is about. We are just going to *catalog* the documents and *say* what license covers them.
No big deal. No ultimatum. If you are making your homemade non-GNU linux "No GNU No GPL" distro (good luck finding a kernel and compilator) you can discard the documents released under the GPL just by checking them on our website. Same if you don't like the BSD license or any other license.
We will just let you know which licenses are covering which documentation. It is just going to be a service, not an obligation. If you just don't care about licenses, don't check. Just consider the GWM as a "one stop" for free software documentation, from LDP to Gnome.
"Linux for the mentally disabled" ? Defitively not politically correct but I love the name.
;-)
Man, that's going to be the title of my next document. Hey, people are *purchasing* linux for dummies, so they have no self esteem problem. That means they can as well come and read my presentation of GNU/Linux
Thanks a lot for your support. Every volunteer is welcome. Currently I do not plan to consolidate metadocuments or dictate a consistent style.
We will just take whatever poeple are writing. Then the users will rate the documents àla slashdot moderation, so the best documents can emerge from the mass.
Then if we find some specific topic has no good document (say UUCP - I like my HOWTO but maybe people don't like it) we can commit ressources to produce that very document.
There is only one requirement for a document to enter the GWM - it will have to be available under a free license. The choice of the "free license" is yours. There are lots of guidelines already exisiting. If people come with strange homemade licenses (for ex. forbidding commercial redistribution) we may publish a list of existing compatible licenses and requirements for a license to be considered "free".
You perfectly understand what I will try to acheive.
;-)
I'm not into the license wars - as long as it is free (as freedom) we will catalog it. We are mostly interested in free software but other documents, like project gutenberg books will also welcome.
Currently we are trying to find all the free documents available on the web, so comments like yours are very helpful. Do not hesitate to contact me if you know other places where one can find good documents.
The GWM *is* about building a centralized point of distribution for documentation, a one stop "shop" (forgive me for this word
There is no documentation sourceforge or freshmeat. Once we will have done that, we may try to raise funds, help with the rewritings, etc.
The GWM will be a meta organisation providing a catalog of free documentation. That's not reinventing the wheel.
Thanks for the high quality of your comment. Yes I'm making a living, and yes I only do free software. It also pays my studies.
I'm sure I could try to make more money if I renounced to my ethics, but I just don't want to. Consider that as a personal issue.
And yes, I do bear arms. And BTW - I live in Europe, not in the US. Here it's not a constitutional right. You've got to be part of rifle association.
Alas, the OSWG died of a slow and painful death - here's the death certificate BTW : http://www.oswg.org/.
The LDP is just about writing documentation. If you add the BSD doc proj., the GNOME doc. proj and the KDE doc proj you have 99% of the documentation that's currently produced.
The OSWG did try to become a meta-documentation project. It failed. Too bad. But we still need some kind of organisation around the documentation projects, for exemple to sponsor authors, decide common documentation formats or rewrite non-free or bad documentation, etc.
Just consider the free software world and the number of organisations (LPI, GNU, Open something) which try to support individual projects.
Now consider the free documentation world, where there is *only* 4 significant projects, and no meta organisation *at all*.
It's not about fragmentation or waisting effort- it's the beggining of a collaborative work. If the LDP, the GDP, the LDP and BSD doc. want to build bridges, we (GWM) will be there to help them. If they don't, we will still collect documentation and try to combine the fruit of they effort.
That's the beauty of free software - you can build on someone else's work.
Alas, I'm not the one who decices. No I didn't wake up someday and said to myself "let's use a non free license to piss off debian people". We had a license. We decided to use it. Then we had a problem - I'm just doing my best to work around it.
:-) I didn't make it up. It is really a problem. Debian was going to move most of the LDP documents out of its main tree. We did everything in a hurry and it's now (mostly) fixed. But *prevention* is better - I'd rather have avoided this problem altogether!
Here we have a license problem (you read the Debian story did you? Hmm? Yes I know that's slashdot
In the imaginary problem you present, rewriting all the manpages doesn't sound like a good solution. It would also be counterproductive since most of them are available under a free license.
Which aren't? There you will need the GWM. We will be able to tell precisely which document is not free (free={GPL,FDL,BSD,OPL...}) and then we can rewrite that very document.
The bad solution is forgetting the license problem until it finds you.
It will take time. I would love to raise funds and distribute them to writers to help producing better documentation. This is the long term goal. Currently, we will just map what's available. Then if people are interested
We already accept donations - if you did read and enjoyed one of our documents, give a little to the LDP (contant webmaster@ibiblio.org - we receive donations through ibiblio) or the GNU project (gnu.org)
The money is spend wisely - recently we paid the shipping free to send donated books to Africa and Brasil.
I did also really enjoy the LDPL - it protected the reader before the author by ensuring the changes would always be available for anyone. Have you ever heard of the GPL loophole for web apps? We had the equivalent loophole in documentation fixed by 1998!
:->
Anyway we decided by 1999 to rewrite and enhance it. David Lawyer was in charge of the license. Some time after he started submitting new versions, I got in touch with the FSF (can't remember who made the first step) who was going to write a documentation license.
RMS was really interested in a specific license for documentation and provided the FDL, based on many concept we wanted to or had already introduced in the new LDPL. I was just dreaming of a license which could be applied to any document and didn't care if it was our baby of the FSF's.
The LDP had a important role in the FDL creation. It was also submited many times to our authors and their feedback was integrated in the license. We are very pleased by the licenses now available - the existing FDL and the OPL v1 when option A and B are not exerted.
So now I'm very sad all this is happening and we just have 2 days to fix the problem. This deadline is unrealistic. Honnestly, would the LDPL destroy "free software spirit" if it was allowed to stay in the free section for another debian version? Do anyone think contacting 2/3 of our authors in a mere couple of days (uh oh- only 1 day left) is easy? (hint: I have a life and work to do. The work I do at the LDP brings $0) And anyway, should documentation abide to Software guidelines ?
Sorry if this rant sounds harsh. I'm one of these "free software zealots" who only install free software, GPL'ed if possible. I do anything I can for free software. It eats all my free time.
Then for a license which is indeed free, we are blackmailed and asked to move to another license we helped designing?????? I would never ever have imagined that. Maybe I should install a BSD on one of my machines tomorrow
Guylhem P. Aznar
LDP Coordinator