From owner-freebsd-doc Fri Sep 22 08:36:35 1995 Return-Path: owner-doc Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.6.12/8.6.6) id IAA07522 for doc-outgoing; Fri, 22 Sep 1995 08:36:35 -0700 Received: from fieber-john.campusview.indiana.edu (Fieber-John.campusview.indiana.edu [149.159.1.34]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.6.12/8.6.6) with ESMTP id IAA07517 for ; Fri, 22 Sep 1995 08:36:28 -0700 Received: (from jfieber@localhost) by fieber-john.campusview.indiana.edu (8.6.11/8.6.9) id KAA04900; Fri, 22 Sep 1995 10:36:07 -0500 Date: Fri, 22 Sep 1995 10:36:07 -0500 (EST) From: John Fieber To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" cc: doc@freebsd.org Subject: Re: New home page In-Reply-To: <21790.811765788@time.cdrom.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-doc@freebsd.org Precedence: bulk [this was originally a discussion of a WWW server remodeling, but has relevance to doc in general, so I moved it to freebsd-doc. BTW, the remodeling-in-progress can be seen at http://fieber-john.campusview.indiana.edu/FreeBSD/home.html.] On Fri, 22 Sep 1995, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: > While "Welcome to FreeBSD" is friendly, I think "What is FreeBSD?" > was more descriptive of the underlying link. I'll ponder this, but I think "Welcome..." will work. > I'm trying like mad to convince more commercial vendors to play > ball with us and it'd be nice if "Commercial software for FreeBSD" > was on the top (maybe not with that heading, but something close). I think we can work this just fine. > taken seriously by n number of vendors. Yes, I know that "The > FreeBSD Gallery" does this now, sort of, but I see this growing > more into more of a "user list" than a concise list of what commercial > software is available for FreeBSD. I'm thinking of separating out the user categories, in the order (1) Commercial, (2) non-commercial, and (3) personal. It nice to see that the Commercial category *is* growing the fastest though. I don't see it as a list of commercial software in any way. I see it as a list of potential *customers* for commercial software. Particularly those who will be listed in category (1). Commercial software *providers* should be listed in their own distinct section, and, of course, they may appear both in the gallery and the providers sections. > Somewhat off-topic, but I think the FAQ needs to die and get > folded into the handbook. No offense to Ollivier, but I think > that there's just too much redundant information there! Maybe > we should open it up for further discussion. Hmm... I think there is still an important role for an FAQ-like document, but as you mention, the current FAQ/Handbook combination is problematic. It takes time to integrate things into the handbook. Too much time for a lot of little quirks that pop up in various releases that need some explanation. I think it may be a good first stop for topics destined for the handbook. However, once they make it into the handbook, they should be removed from the FAQ. People working on the handbook should, in effect, mine the FAQ for handbook material. In turn, the FAQ team should mine the mailing lists for FAQ material. (continuing to think with my keyboard...) An analogy might be that the FAQ is like a paramedic, the handbook is the hospital. The FAQ deals with "emergency" situations, the handbook with more routine care. This implies that the FAQ needs to be much more dynamic. I also wonder if the complexities of the current SGML system inhibits frequent updates. I've batted around the idea of making a very simple FAQ DTD that would make the thing easier to maintain and use. -john == jfieber@indiana.edu =========================================== == http://fieber-john.campusview.indiana.edu/~jfieber ============