Re: The future of the Subversion book
On Wed, Sep 5, 2018 at 4:49 PM Mark Phippard wrote: > Assuming the PMC wanted it, is it possible for the book to be contributed > to this project and hosted in the Apache SVN repository? Many people seem > to post questions and issues in these mailing lists as if it is part of the > project anyway so maybe we ought to just make this the reality. I guess > what I am saying is, before we gauge opinion on whether we want to bring > this into the project, my question is whether there are any blockers that > prevent this on the book side from being an option? Such as copyright or > licensing issues that make it not possible. It feels like this has been > discussed in the past and there were reasons it was kept separate from the > project even after the publishing of the book by O'Reilly was in the past, > but I no longer recall them. I know we're not gauging opinions yet but I think the book should be consolidated into the official Apache Subversion project. It would be a boost to both efforts for many reasons. Furthermore having the documentation presented on the same website is much more sensible and professional from a user perspective. It would also help in a future redesign of the website, as the documentation section would be thorough and quite complete.
Re: The future of the Subversion book
On Sep 5, 2018, at 3:39 PM, C. Michael Pilato wrote: > To be clear, red-bean.com is happy to continue hosting the book's HTML/PDF > builds. The source lives at SourceForge these days, and I can grant commit > permissions (or transfer ownership) as needed. Moreover, there's no deadline > for maintainership handoff that I'm trying to impose or anything. I want to > do what's best for the Subversion ecosystem, whatever this community > determines that to be. > > Feel free to consider alternate approaches, too, such as conversion of the > book's content into a Wiki. But I would caution against doing anything that > discourages or complicates the workflow of the book's translators, especially > since they are the only ones actually doing anything in the project at all! > :-) > > So what do you think? First off, thank you for maintaining the book for as long as you have. Assuming the PMC wanted it, is it possible for the book to be contributed to this project and hosted in the Apache SVN repository? Many people seem to post questions and issues in these mailing lists as if it is part of the project anyway so maybe we ought to just make this the reality. I guess what I am saying is, before we gauge opinion on whether we want to bring this into the project, my question is whether there are any blockers that prevent this on the book side from being an option? Such as copyright or licensing issues that make it not possible. It feels like this has been discussed in the past and there were reasons it was kept separate from the project even after the publishing of the book by O'Reilly was in the past, but I no longer recall them. Mark
Re: The future of the Subversion book
C. Michael Pilato wrote on Wed, 05 Sep 2018 15:39 -0400: > To be clear, red-bean.com is happy to continue hosting the book's > HTML/PDF builds. The source lives at SourceForge these days, and I can > grant commit permissions (or transfer ownership) as needed. Moreover, > there's no deadline for maintainership handoff that I'm trying to impose > or anything. I want to do what's best for the Subversion ecosystem, > whatever this community determines that to be. > > Feel free to consider alternate approaches, too, such as conversion of > the book's content into a Wiki. But I would caution against doing > anything that discourages or complicates the workflow of the book's > translators, especially since they are the only ones actually doing > anything in the project at all! :-) > > So what do you think? Can we identify specific tasks that interested volunteers can pick up? Initial draft: - Respond to bug reports as they come in - Liaise with translators - Add content about from the <1.8/1.9/1.10/1.11> release - Bring the book up-to-speed with _all_ new features since 1.8 or 1.9 (?) - Go through the issue tracker backlog (is there one?) Thanks for all your book work over the years! Daniel
The future of the Subversion book
Hello, all! It's been a long while since I interacted with any degree of regularity with this community, and I've had to come to terms with some essential truths. First, my time as an active Subversion developer has *definitely* passed. Oh, I may get a chance to return to it at some point in the (likely distant) future, but without CollabNet commissioning my efforts here, I simply don't have the extra cycles these days to offer. Given that my contributions over the last few years can be measured in the smallest of numbers, this isn't news to anyone here and certainly has no effect on the trajectory and velocity of the project! Of greater concern to (at least) myself is that the cognitive distance I have from Subversion these days -- combined with the craziness of just life as an twice-employed[1], soccer-coaching, father of three -- means that the Subversion book is getting next-to-zero attention, too. Oh, I'm still paying attention to the work our translators are doing, and wordsmithing here and there as concerns are raised. But the (as-yet-unfinished) trunk of the book is still attached to Subversion 1.8, which means that this community has pounded out all kinds of improvements whose documentation is mostly limited to release notes and email threads. Put simply, the service that Ben and Fitz (both long gone from contributing to the book at all) and I formerly offered to the wider Subversion community has arguably now become a disservice. I'm done telling myself that I can fix this by re-engaging and taking up authorship again. That just isn't gonna happen. It's time to pass the torch to someone else, and I would love to immediately begin tossing around some ideas toward this end. To be clear, red-bean.com is happy to continue hosting the book's HTML/PDF builds. The source lives at SourceForge these days, and I can grant commit permissions (or transfer ownership) as needed. Moreover, there's no deadline for maintainership handoff that I'm trying to impose or anything. I want to do what's best for the Subversion ecosystem, whatever this community determines that to be. Feel free to consider alternate approaches, too, such as conversion of the book's content into a Wiki. But I would caution against doing anything that discourages or complicates the workflow of the book's translators, especially since they are the only ones actually doing anything in the project at all! :-) So what do you think? -- Mike [1] Beyond my regular CollabNet work week, I give additional hours as a member of the staff of my local church.
