[RFC] Legacy documentation

I've been wondering about this for a while, so when Stuart brought up the age of the Keeping Up to Date tutorial: http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/updates/ today on #fedora-docs, I figured it was time to open this discussion. I'm hoping you are interested in taking over some documentation. We have a few documents that are FC2 specific and are going to be orphaned when FC2 moves over to the Legacy Project. The Docs Project (FDP) follows the Fedora Core release and maintenance schedule, meaning when a version of Core goes to the Legacy Project, the docs should go with it. I'll list what those docs are (just a few), bring up some ideas about what can be done with them, and finish with a few useful URLs. ## The Docs: We'll have a list that is a bit longer for FC3 when that time comes. Keeping Up to Date (FC2) http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/updates/ We're likely to update this for FC4, if a writer pops up wanting it. Fedora Jargon Buster http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/jargon-buster/ This was written originally under FC1. It may not be out of date, but it hasn't been updated in six months. Package List for Fedora Core 2 http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/package-list/fc2/ I don't know anything about this or its value. Release notes for FC2 http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/release-notes/fc2/x86/ http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/release-notes/fc2/x86_64/ Not sure that you'd ever want to update them, and we can certainly leave them in place. For relnotes in particular it's a good thing to keep old ones around. Fedora Core 2 SELinux FAQ http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/selinux-faq-fc2/ SELinux had a breakdown in updates to FC2, and this FAQ says at the top to upgrade to FC3. However, if anyone is trying to work with SELinux in FC2, this FAQ might be valuable. ## What to Do? I'm just throwing out a few ideas, which may even be somewhat exclusive of each other. 1. Legacy Docs could be a sub-project of the Docs Project. There is no rule that says what is in our purview. I keep the nose of the project turned in the direction Fedora Core is going, but the rest of the head can be doing other things at the same time. Currently, we don't have enough writers to work on new documents that are needed for FC. I don't know of anyone interested in the Legacy docs. IMO, maintenance of a set of Legacy docs is likely to be easier than a doc that tracks something with an active update schedule in FC. I had this with the SELinux FAQ. It was very active during the early parts of the release, and tapered off as rawhide become more of the next version. This means that one or two people could maintain quite a large set of docs. This could be great experience for someone interested in technical writing, open source projects, or need to support a legacy app. By integrating the efforts, current docs could be written with Legacy needs in mind. Whatever those turn out to be. 2. Legacy Project can form the Legacy Docs as a sub-project. This is more of a throw over the wall scheme. I'd recommend that the FDP remain available to help train on the tools. Since the Legacy Project is going to need to staff the a documentation effort with writers, you might as well keep them close to the rest of the project. 3. Legacy Project could cherry-pick from the versioned docs. The FDP would likely keep the outdated docs available, but mark them clearly as not current. The FDP will help get Legacy writers up to speed, mainly through our standard docs and procedures, then mailing list support where needed. ## URLs FDP page: http://fedora.redhat.com/projects/docs/ For an overview of the docs process: http://fedora.redhat.com/participate/documentation-quick-start/ Our Wiki page is still being added to, we'll be adding process documentation through this medium: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject Thanks - Karsten -- Karsten Wade, RHCE * Sr. Tech Writer * http://people.redhat.com/kwade/ gpg fingerprint: 2680 DBFD D968 3141 0115 5F1B D992 0E06 AD0E 0C41 Red Hat SELinux Guide http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-4-Manual/selinux-guide/