Date: Mon, 27 Dec 1999 19:40:03 +0000 From: Nik Clayton <nik@freebsd.org> To: Mike s <god@yahoo.com> Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org, freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Portal Message-ID: <19991227194003.D80910@catkin.nothing-going-on.org> In-Reply-To: <19991227004005.25908.qmail@web503.mail.yahoo.com>; from Mike s on Sun, Dec 26, 1999 at 04:40:05PM -0800 References: <19991227004005.25908.qmail@web503.mail.yahoo.com>
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Mike,
On Sun, Dec 26, 1999 at 04:40:05PM -0800, Mike s wrote:
> Well, i have already taking the iniative in starting
> what it is i have been talking about.
That's great. It gives people a chance to see what you have in mind.
Actions speak a lot louder than words.
> I have a lot of documentation that is done already, (
> alot being 35% )
> the site is very appealing for those that use netscape
> and the like and is also
> lynx friendly.
Also good. I'd be interested in you collaborating with the rest of
the doc team to try and get this in to the 'mainstream' site as well.
> I have already coded alot of user/interactive parts of
> the site in php.
This is (sort of) the problem.
PHP (or Zope, or Zend, or lots complicated CGI scripts) are great when
you only have one site. And one language. And only a few people working
on it.
As soon as you start using something less mainstream, you start to reduce
the number of people who can work on it, and, more importantly, you increase
the effort required to mirror it (and, quite possibly, to translate it).
If you look at the FreeBSD site as it is at the moment, you'll see it's
mirrored in sixty countries, and translated in to five languages.
That's possible because the site's infrastructure is relatively basic.
The mirrors don't need to worry about setting up a complex webserver,
all they need is basic CGI functionality, and the translation teams just
need to be familiar with HTML, there's nothing extra they need to learn.
This keeps the effort requirement down, and increases the chance that
people will participate.
Looking at your list of proposed content;
> before launching the alpha site it will include:
>
> -a step by step installation process focused on the
> novice.
> -troubleshooting
> -basic networking support
> -getting Connected to the internet
> -all man pages marked outdated/up to date
> -using CVSup and make world
> -security related support
> -what services need to be running for specific server
> purposes
> -performance optimization
> -understanding log files
> -understanding /etc/*.conf files for the novice
> -most common asked questions with simple solutions (
> Not FAQ's )
> -FreeBSD command reference.
> -UID's and GID's file permissions
> -introduction to firewalls.
> -mailing list archives which users will be able to
> send and recieve via the web
With the exception of the mailing list archives, there's nothing there
that can't be done with the FreeBSD site as it is, and;
> the beauty of the site is that user can submit
> comments to the documentation
> also add documentation to the subject in mind that
> will be pre-formatted
> to the site once submitted and at the bottom of the
> page will be links to all
> the comments and addition documentation.
That's a nice idea. I'd be interested in something like this for the
FreeBSD site that automatically included a link to the outstanding PRs
for a piece of documentation.
However, your approach won't scale to new languages, or to mirror sites,
without a lot of effort, and it's issues like these that we have to
consider for the main FreeBSD site.
Also, consider how the user will be able to get their documentation. Will
it only be available from your site? A lot of people have dial up
connections, and won't want to recheck a new site each week on the off
chance that some comments have been added to a document. How will they be
able to keep local copies of your documentation? Will they be able to
download Postscript or PDF versions for pretty printing. Or even suitable
for installing in to a Palm Pilot[1].
I'm not trying to be negative -- I deeply appreciate that you want to help,
and that you're prepared to put the time in to doing some work on what you
see as being problems.
N
[1] OK, I only got this working a few weeks ago, but it's still a very
nice feature :-)
--
If you want to imagine the future, imagine a tennis shoe stamping
on a penguin's face forever.
--- with apologies to George Orwell
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