From owner-freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Wed May 28 03:38:46 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3094B1065670 for ; Wed, 28 May 2008 03:38:46 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from linimon@lonesome.com) Received: from mail.soaustin.net (lefty.soaustin.net [66.135.55.46]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 108538FC17 for ; Wed, 28 May 2008 03:38:46 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from linimon@lonesome.com) Received: by mail.soaustin.net (Postfix, from userid 502) id 3904C8C07D; Tue, 27 May 2008 22:07:45 -0500 (CDT) Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 22:07:45 -0500 To: Manolis Kiagias Message-ID: <20080528030745.GD27463@soaustin.net> References: <483C6E04.3070804@otenet.gr> <20080528.060009.127260270.hrs@allbsd.org> <483C7AD4.5090409@otenet.gr> <20080528.063631.13709725.hrs@allbsd.org> <483C83D1.40609@otenet.gr> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <483C83D1.40609@otenet.gr> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.13 (2006-08-11) From: linimon@lonesome.com (Mark Linimon) Cc: freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.org, Hiroki Sato Subject: Re: Wiki style FAQ proposal X-BeenThere: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Documentation project List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 03:38:46 -0000 On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 12:57:37AM +0300, Manolis Kiagias wrote: > In my opinion, the sgml FAQ should be limited to questions about the > project and maybe not so quickly changing technical stuff. This was my idea also the last time I looked at it (sigh) which appears to have been several years ago :-( Here is the prototype that I drew up by hacking out what I felt were the "changeable" (and/or stale!) technical things: http://people.freebsd.org/~linimon/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/ which you can compare to the latest snapshot: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/ For the side-by-side, look at: http://people.freebsd.org/~linimon/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/book.html vs. http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/book.html The former is 48 screenfuls on this laptop; the latter is 212. Also note that 6 screenfuls are bibilography. That should be separate no matter what else is done. (It could probably just stay in SGML.) Even out of those 42, there is _still_ probably stuff that could move to the Handbook; it was meant as a working copy, before I task-switched to portmgr things and never task-switched back.. Finally, as to the argument about not having the technical bits on disk, I agree with that to some degree, but if the technical bits are years obsolete it hardly matters*. To the extent that the bits should ship with each copy of FreeBSD, I think you can make the argument that a) if they are "what is the xyz subsystem", it ought to be moved to the Handbook; if it's b) "how to get xyz to work", it ought to be moved to a separate article. This would leave the wiki (or CMS, or whatever) for questions that come and go with various releases. mcl * example: "For FreeBSD 5.X and later you will need a 486 or better PC, with 24 MB or more of RAM and at least 150 MB of hard disk space."