Competition and Integration

[Paul W. Frields]

On Mon, 2005-04-11 at 16:02 +0100, Gavin Henry wrote:
> <quote who="Karsten Wade">
> > On Tue, 2005-04-12 at 00:30 +1000, Colin Charles wrote:
> >>
> >> That would mean getting Max, to agree to his faq becoming merged at the
> >> main site, and of less importance
> >>
> >> Boy were there troubles I remember when trying to sort this out at the
> >> OpenOffice.org project (I used to be the unofficial FAQ maintainer
> >> too...) There were just sadly about three other competing ideas when the
> >> merger came and no one seemed to agree on anything useful it'd seem
> >
> > This is my biggest personal concern.  I don't want our Big Fedora Ax to
> > takeover the good work done by others.  I don't see a need to compete in
> > a doc niche unless there is a need.  Such as the existing docs are worth
> > replacing. :)
> >
> >> >  ignore
> >> > it and let it continue as it is. any other ideas?
> >>
> >> If Max is happy with what he does, I say lets point to it. We should
> >> decentralise as much as possible (we can have a faq on our site, but we
> >> should allow for unofficial faqs)
> >>
> >> Now back to ubuntuguide. The step-by-step guide _really_ does help new
> >> users to Fedora (well, Ubuntu in that case). If someone's interested,
> >> something like that should happen with the faq
> >>
> >> BTW, I'm not sure if Max read's this list, but at some stage someone on
> >> the Steering Committee (docs) should contact him
> >
> > Good idea, we want the connection done properly.  However, if there is
> > anyone who wants to be the writer in charge of such a derivation, that
> > would be a Good Think to Know.  I don't want to start such discussions
> > without someone committed to doing the work we agree upon.
> >
> > I don't think we can possibly replace fedorafaq.org.  I know we don't
> > want to.  I would be concerned that our derivation would draw people
> > from fedorafaq.org that need to be there instead.  It would be awkward
> > to have a huge "Tip" at the start of our FAQ that then vaguely suggests
> > searching somewhere else for answers if you can't find them here.
> > Especially if our FAQ became highly ranked.
> 
> What about just linking the links that mention mp3's etc. back to
> fedorafaq.org?
> 
> As our disclaimer says:
> 
> "Links to Third Party Sites
> 
> This website may be linked to other websites which are not under the
> control of and are not maintained by Red Hat. Red Hat is not responsible
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> terminate any link or linking program at any tme."

See the link to the 2004 thread which Karsten posted previously this
morning.  Although IANAL, I feel pretty comfortable surmising that's a
catchall that covers Red Hat in cases where they're unaware of a linked
site's content, or that content changes in an unexpected way, as can
happen.  Intentionally linking to a site that provides instructions on
how to violate licensing requirements is probably another story.

I would simply ask, in the interests of sanity, bandwidth, and
preserving ourselves from unnecessary frustration, that before anyone
posts "why can't we do XXX" messages, please review the previous threads
on this topic in the list archives:

  http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/

August 2004 definitely has some content, as Karsten found; if anyone
would like to post other references that would be great too.

I think Karsten has a good point in that we don't need to gobble up
great work other people are doing.  There are plenty of niches that are
firmly in our territory, and which need doing well.  Perhaps clarifying
those areas would be a good use of a portion of the FDSCO's time and
effort.

-- 
Paul W. Frields, RHCE                          http://paul.frields.org/
  gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233  5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
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