[RFC] Legacy documentation

[Karsten Wade]

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  It may not be out of date,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/
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