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Date:      Thu, 1 Oct 1998 11:45:27 +0930
From:      Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
To:        Ray Seals <rayseals@midwestis.com>, Freebsd-Advocacy <freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG>
Cc:        Jordan Hubbard <jkh@FreeBSD.ORG>, FreeBSD-doc@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: On-line Help
Message-ID:  <19981001114527.E603@freebie.lemis.com>
In-Reply-To: <000d01bdec7e$b9fde2e0$1a1e10ac@rseals.midwestis.com>; from Ray Seals on Wed, Sep 30, 1998 at 09:29:26AM -0500
References:  <000d01bdec7e$b9fde2e0$1a1e10ac@rseals.midwestis.com>

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On Wednesday, 30 September 1998 at  9:29:26 -0500, Ray Seals wrote:
>
> Since Jordan and Greg read this group also,

I can't speak for Jordan, but in my case I read this list when I have
time.  I try to find time, but I don't always succeed.  So: if you
want to be sure I read a specific message, please copy me on it
explicitly.  I always read messages addressed to me directly.

In view of that and the subject matter, I'm copying Jordan (who may
have a lot to say) and the documentation project on this message.

> I would like to make this comment.  The one thing I will hand to the
> Linux crowd is the HOWTO pages on their website.  While we have a
> pretty decent set of help pages on our side.  As a FreeBSD newbie
> (1.2 years) I have found some things rather difficult to track down.
> I propose that we spend some time porting their HOWTO pages to
> FreeBSD website.  I'm sure the lack of documentation on how to do
> things is due to the fact that most of us aren't 14 year olds or in
> college.  So, we don't have a lot of time on our hands to write
> documentation.  We have to document enough stuff at work.

Agreed.  I had thought of collecting the howtos and adapting them to
FreeBSD as an interim measure.  Note that this would mean that they
would be under the GPL; I don't see a big problem with this, though I
know others do.

> How bad do you think that would piss those guys off?

They have no reason to be pissed off.  If they release stuff under the
GPL, they must expect (even welcome) this to happen.

> I'm not talking about down right copying either.  I'm talking about
> using their stuff as a frame work to see what is needed by the
> general public in terms of documentation for tasks.

Sure.  Nothing else would work.

I'm very much in favour of the idea, but we should bear in mind that
the documents will come under the GPL, so I'd suggest that we keep the
FreeBSD-specific stuff elsewhere (under a Berkeley copyright) and
parallel to that merge them into the GPL version.  That way, when we
have time, we can make a complete Berkeley version which is not
affected by the GPL.

Any suggestions where we should start?

Greg
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