From owner-freebsd-doc Fri Dec 10 7:25:32 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Received: from server.baldwin.cx (jobaldwi.campus.vt.edu [198.82.67.146]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D802C1507C for ; Fri, 10 Dec 1999 07:25:25 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jhb@FreeBSD.org) Received: from john.baldwin.cx (john [10.0.0.2]) by server.baldwin.cx (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id KAA49307; Fri, 10 Dec 1999 10:25:16 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from jhb@FreeBSD.org) Message-Id: <199912101525.KAA49307@server.baldwin.cx> X-Mailer: XFMail 1.4.0 on FreeBSD X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <19991210161641.G85568@lucifer.bart.nl> Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1999 10:25:16 -0500 (EST) From: John Baldwin To: Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven Subject: branch vs. osversion* (was: Re: "ze" and "zp" drivers removed...) Cc: doc@FreeBSD.org Sender: owner-freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On 10-Dec-99 Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven wrote: > -On [19991210 16:10], John Baldwin (jhb@FreeBSD.org) wrote: >>Ok, the problem with this patch is that we can't just remove the references >>entirely because the drivers still exist in 3.x. In fact, looking over this >>chapter, it is still very much 2.2.x specific. Do we have the osversionmin, >>osersionmax, and other variables awailable, as well as the support for them >>in >>the toolset so that we can start marking some parts of the documentation as >>specific to certain releases? It's either that or branch -doc, IMHO. > > I know. My patch was more of the Danish type. =) > > Last time I talked this over with Nik we came to some sort of id="" like > argument to a tag which would be os="". > > But I am now starting to think a branching of the handbook to the > relevant versions might be desirable. This lessens the clutter we get > from putting too much in the same document. > > OTOH, after remembering something about os="" arguments. We have one > document for say kernel configuration which, when given proper make > arguments, will generate relevant documentation for a given release. We > could then tag this along with a release or something along that order. I'm also worried about readability. If there are lots of pieces that get cut out, then you are going to have a document that abruptly stops and starts in some places instead of flowing. Most of this documentation is for newbies, so it needs to be as easy to read as possible, IMHO. I think that having a cookie-cutter system where we mix and match pieces of a chapter isn't going to have the same flow. Greg Lehey has different editions of _The_Complete_FreeBSD_ for each major branch, and I think we should do the same with at least the FAQ and Handbook. I think that if managed branches properly, we would be updating the -current Handbook while -current was being turned into the next -stable. Thus, by the time a new branch forked off, that documentation would be basically done, and we could put the -stable branches in more of a maintenance mode. However, since we are 2 branches behind right now, it's going to require a good deal of work at this time to catch up. -- John Baldwin -- http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/ PGP Key: http://www.cslab.vt.edu/~jobaldwi/pgpkey.asc "Power Users Use the Power to Serve!" - http://www.FreeBSD.org/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message