On Monday 14 August 2006 15:55, Frank Sundermeyer wrote:
> > There is some logic behind distributing the sources in this way, but
> > for collaborative development it seems rather inefficient. If forge
> > has the SVN repo, I would have thought that this would be a perfect
> > place for collaboration.
> >
> > Having to develop out of the rpm and tarbal source is a RPITA with it
> > comes to creating patches and merging updates from everyone into the
> > distributed working copies out there.
> >
> > While I have been using SuSE since version 8.0, I am new here, so
> > please do correct me if I am wrong on this or have missed out
> > something. probably not seeing the big picture at this point.
>
> our xml sources are the single source for documentation for all SUSE
> Linux / openSUSE based products (e.g. the former SUSE Linux, SUSE Linux
> Enterprise Server, SUSE LInux Enterprise Desktop,...).

Yup I don't see any problem with that.

> So each change to the sources may have an affect on the different
> documentation sets we are building from this source. Therefore we need
> to be extra careful when merging "3rd party" contributions into our
> documentation.
>
> So, we really appreciate feedback and user contributions, but need to
> have full control on what goes back into our sources. Therefore
> the "RPITA way" of accepting contributions ;-)).

Contributors do not have to have commit access to the repository. They can do 
anonymous checkouts of your sources and create patches that can be added to a 
ticket management system or send the patches directly to people within the 
internal team. In this way you can securely manage and ensure the integrity 
of any patches contributed.

I am not sure how many people are on the SuSE doc team internal to the 
organization, but I imagine that they must always be adding to and improving 
the documentation, otherwise I would not see the changes in each new release. 
Obtaining these changes is important for contributors and I imagine 
yourselves as it gives you the extra input and quality control that comes 
from more eyeballs.

Don't get me wrong, I think you guys do an excellent job. I just think the 
process for development could be more open and transparent, especially in 
light of the openSuSE community.

For example:

I've been looking around for a ticket tracking system containing things to 
work on. Places where I may start. Just something small for now. So far I 
have not found one, bugs I did find in bugzilla. 

Please don't tell me that it's a coding Doku-Wichtl :-)

From here, looking inwards, it seems like there is no real guidance on how 
people can get started with contributing to SuSE documents. Knowing where to 
start by providing a list of things showing who has claimed what and what 
remains unclaimed, would make a world of difference.

Point to this mailing list and the big list is not a big help when a person is 
considering getting involved with doc development.

Thanks,

-- 
Ask me about the Monkey.

Sean Wheller
Technical Author
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
+27-84-854-9408
http://www.inwords.co.za
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