Date: Fri, 07 Jul 1995 13:27:02 -0700 From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@freebsd.org> To: Branson Matheson <branson@hojo.larc.nasa.gov> Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org (Hackers FreeBSD) Subject: Re: Dc_Users Group Meeting Message-ID: <5476.805148822@time.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 07 Jul 1995 09:45:16 EDT." <199507071345.JAA19906@hojo.larc.nasa.gov>
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> - Improving the DOC project with contributions from members on their > local speciality. This would include things that might refelect the > linux HowTo project. This definitely gets my enthusiastic support.. > - Improving documentation that may be sent out with the FreeBSD > release cd's. This could be a seperate offering that would include a > manual and cd. This would be directed at first time users and the > corperate market. Target for this is the 2.1 Release. Yes! I was just discussing this as one of my primary goals for 2.1, in fact. If one reads the newsgroups for any length of time, in fact, it becomes quickly and distressingly apparent that people are still very much confused by some of our "highly assumptive" documentation. We're still not taking it well into account that most users are LAZY SCHMUCKS WHO WOULDN'T READ A MANUAL IF YOU WHAPPED THEM UPSIDE THE HEAD WITH IT! I MEAN, I MEAN, *SLAP*. Uh. Thanks, I needed that. Sorry to rave, and what I meant to say was that given that most users aren't going to wade through lots of doc, the goal shouldn't be to generate *more* doc so much as to generate *better* doc. By "better" I mean documentation that presents more of the crucial stuff up-front, takes care to explain its terms early so that people don't have to read 4 pages in to see that by "FAQ" we meant /usr/share/FAQ/blah/blah and (and this is most important) actually tries to be self-consistent with documentation conventions and explaining things in the proper order. Our docs are riddled with bogons like referring to the FAQ as "The FreeBSD FAQ" in one paragraph, /usr/share/FAQ/Text/FreeBSD.FAQ in another one 2 paragraphs down and perhaps just "the FAQ" in yet another paragraph. This kind of stuff really confuses users when they've jumped ahead to something they thought was relevant and in the process missed some crucial jewel of information that wasn't replicated anywhere else. We need to decide on important conventions like a "glossary of terms" at the beginning of every document, or a "last updated" strings at the top so that we know when something is out of date, and out of date MANY things are right now. I just sent about 30K of seriously needed diffs to John Fieber for the handbook last night and I haven't even scratched the surface of some of the historical cruft in there. This is one area where we really need an army of active proof-readers who take on the rather miserable task of reading the stuff again and again with each new release. When a user sees something in our own docs that's plainly wrong for the release they're now using, it hardly inspires confidence that we didn't even care enough about it to even update it! :-( > - Working to get more commercial grade packages available for users > and commercial level support available for the users. I work on this on a pretty much on-going basis and would be happy to liase with anyone else doing this. > - The incorperation of "super-packages" that would be supersets of > currenly available packages. This may include things like a > Sys-Admin package that includes sudo or runas, amanda, tcsh, and > others. Agreed. The framework is already there, in fact, we just need to add the concept of paths to pkg_add and we can make packages that are just dependencies and nothing else. > - The creation and support of turnkey systems for users. This would > be directed at a certian use such as routing, firewall, and Internet > connectivity. You must be a mind-reader - I was just talking to some folks about just such a system the other day.. I had envisioned some Tk based interface that let you configure your machine as anything from a router to a firewall to a corporate mail server, just by clicking the relevant buttons and typing the right information when it popped up in your face and asked for it. Such a system wouldn't take more than 6 months to write, and it would catapult FreeBSD right into the enterprise server market. A lot of companies are happy enough letting ISPs do their WEB servers and such for them right now, but I also see a time coming when some of them decide that they'd really like this stuff closer to home where they can change it more quickly or deploy more secure services where they have physical control over the machine. If we could offer a more server oriented "Internet in a box" equivalent to such people, it would be a terrific boon. I may sit down and write something like this myself soon since I've been thinking about it so much, but a team effort wouldn't bother me at all either. Lest we forget, Internet servers are also hardly the only turnkey apps around. Long before we came on the scene, SCO was selling into warehouse inventory control systems and point-of-sales apps (next time you go to the movie theater, you may be amused to know that the screen the sales clerk is typing on goes to a SCO box in the back) and all of these are ripe and fertile ground for FreeBSD, if only someone would jump in and write the business side. I think it also goes without saying that our biggest commercial priority right now should be to obtain a commercial quality database of some sort (or take something like postgres and make it into one) so that such efforts as this can actually happen. Without a database, it's all little more than pointless speculation to debate a serious entry into the turnkey market. > The meeting lasted for about 3.5 hours. And was very nice for all > concerned. The next meeting will be at the same place in Tysons > Corner August 19th at 2:00. Great! I'm really glad to see this happening! Other groups, take inspiration from Mr. Matheson's example here! We could easily have FreeBSD groups all over the country if people were willing to start with even 2 or 3 people. > If you are interested in joining the group, send mail to: > > Majordomo@kryten.atinc.com with subscribe in the body. Subscribe to... Which mailing list? :-) Thanks for this update! It seems that a San Francisco Bay Area meeting is sort of encumbent on us folks now, doesn't it? We can't have those DC people showing us up like this! :-) Please email me (directly, not this list) if you have any preferences as to venue and time. Jordan
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