Rob Weir wrote: > I like the idea of using ODF, for the reasons you state. > > I assuming this implies ODF files in the SVN repository. If so, we're > going to have three pain points: > > 1) Since ODF is not a text format, diff's are not possible with the > default SVN tools. Yes, we can do change tracking inside of the > document, but it is harder to monitor changes to an ODF document in > the repository by looking at commit messages. > > 2) How do non-committer contributors submit user guide patches and how > are they reviewed and applied? > > 3) Similar to #2, how do we merge changes if multiple committers > modify the same file? > > None of these are killers. We could reduce the the impact of #3 if we > used fine-grained ODF documents. So instead of 100 page documents, > have ten ten-page documents that could be merged for publication. > That way we get fewer conflicts. > > There are things we could do about #1. SVN allows an external diff > program. We could write one, perhaps using the ODF Toolkit, that > extracts text and diffs it. Similarly, we could write an ODF patch > utility. Yes, this is extra work, but it is useful and would benefit > more than just OOo. > > -Rob >
Hi Rob, I agree with Jean. The manuals can be uploaded or linked to the wiki page. There is no need to reinvent a system that works as well as the ODFAuthors does. Forcing people to lean a new system that they have no interest in will only drive contributors away. Andy
