Re: License problem in Ubuntu Desktop Guide (Re: Incorporating

[Joachim Noreiko <jnoreiko yahoo com>]

--- Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt myrealbox com> wrote:

> On Sep 6, 2006, at 9:04 PM, Joachim Noreiko wrote:
> > ...
> > 1a. Ubuntu Desktop Guide covers things that we
> can't. Eg installing 
> > packages, using ubuntu with a dual boot system,
> getting MP3s to play, 
> > getting hardware to work.  We can't cover those
> because of this whole
> > linux/gnome/distro stack business, which, if you
> read slashdot, is 
> > *apparently* a strength of free software. meh.
> 
> So it would be really really cool if the Gnome help
> assumed that
> (a) people using Gnome are using an operating system
> based on Gnome, and
> 
> > 1b. Ubuntu Desktop Guide has a more "get started"
> approach. Eg 'how do 
> > I play my music?', 'how do I print stuff?', 'how
> do I get onto the 
> > internet?' See here for example:
> >
>
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-doc/2006-August/006986.html
> > This is stuff we could have in the user guide, but
> probably not to the 
> > depth Ubuntu covers it.
> 
> (b) people browsing help are looking for answers to
> questions (a
>      relative strength of the Ubuntu Desktop Guide),
> not in "manuals" or
>      "guides" as such.

True. 
But you also have to actually explain the basics. I
mean the stuff that most of us reading this take for
granted. Just last week I saw a friend scrolling down
a long web page -- to advance by a screen's worth of
text, he clicked the 'down' scrollbar button
repeatedly. I think he had no idea that you could hold
it down. 
The same goes for things like double-clicking to
select whole words, or the fact that copy-paste works
between applications (examples off the top of my head
that I've seen users astounded to learn of).
I see a need for a fairly large chunk of the user
guide explaining basic GUI concepts like this -- but
this shouldn't get in the way of users who want
answers to questions, or procedure-based help, or even
an overview of an app.
One of the things I really dislike about Microsoft's
new approach to help is that there seems to be no
overall table of contents, or list of features. Just
lots and lots of "tell me about thingy", which is
usually the wrong thingy. I never seem to be able to
get an answer to a question such as "what the heck
does this checkbox in that dialog do?"

> > 2. Mallard would allow us to define a structure
> for a comprehensive 
> > User Guide, leaving gaps for material from the
> Ubuntu docs to slot in.
> 
> That would be very good (dare I say long overdue?),
> though it would put 
> distributors under the gun for ensuring those gaps
> were always filled 
> in. (We saw this in microcosm with yelp's "Try this
> search at ____" 
> function; it makes much more sense if distributors
> customize it than if 
> they don't.)

Well, they are gaps that already exist in the GNOME
UG. So if they are still there, there is no change. 
 
> > But here's a 5th question: does Ubuntu's
> dual-licensing prevent 
> > material from Ubuntu docs moving upstream and
> coming into our user 
> > guide?
> 
> I think so, if
> GFDL-with-no-invariant-sections-or-cover-texts
> (Gnome) 
> is close enough to ambiguous-GFDL (Ubuntu) to be
> considered "precisely 
> this License" (GFDL section 4). The result would be
> GFDL, losing the 
> CC-BY-SA from the Ubuntu Desktop Guide.
> 
> But while the GFDL might be reasonable for manuals,
> it's an *awful* 
> license for help pages. It would require each new
> version of a page to 
> have a distinct title (4.A, hence the ugly "GnomeApp
> Manual V2.8" 
> titles Gnome has currently), 

That one's been cleared up. The title must change if
there is a fork. New releases are considered to be the
same document. Our titles are in the process of being
sanitized.

> a title page (4.B~C)
> containing a list of 
> the authors (4.B), a copy of the GFDL itself (4.H),
> a changelog (4.I), 
> and the URL of the page's source code (4.J).

I have no idea how we're going about satisfying these.

> Completely unreasonable.
> 

Indeed, investigating a new documentation license is
one of the tasks involved in creating Mallard (see the
wiki page for more,
http://live.gnome.org/ProjectMallard).
Though it does strike me as highly ironic (and a bit
rubbish) that the GFDL is no good for writing free
documentation for a GNU project ;)


		
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