Subject: Linux-Activists - DOC Channel digest. 94-1-5-13:25
From: "Linux Activists" <[email-masked]>
To: "Linux-Activists" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 1994 19:15:52 +0200

Topics:
	 Re: LDP documentation and the FSF
	 Re: LDP documentation and the FSF

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From: [email-masked] (Matt Welsh)
Subject: Re: LDP documentation and the FSF
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 1994 08:51:51 +0200

""Michael K. Johnson"" <[email-masked]> writes:
> 
> First, I won't write in texinfo.  html, maybe.

I'm not asking you to. I just want to be open-minded about the
possibilities. Using texinfo just might give us many advantages
which outweigh the initial trouble of using it.

> the hurd.  Really.   The KHG is the one *essentially Linux* book in
> our line-up.

That's great. I'm not asking to get rid of Linux-specific docs. I'm
asking to generalize where we can.

> Agreed.  I'd like this to change too.  However, I'm not going to sign
> over documentation that I write the the FSF at this point.

Nobody's asking you to. With the current license, they can use it
to some extent, anyway. :) 

> I agree, but I still argue that texinfo is a backwards,
> not-terribly-friendly system.

Funny---that's what they used to say about UNIX. :)

> I guess I've always had the assumption that in the long run, that we
> would be benefitting each other, but that we'd get more done by
> focusing on our project, so that when the time comes, we have
> something worth working with.

Well, the time is coming as far as the I&GS and NAG are. Specifically,
the FSF wants to use LDP docs in their CD-ROM release of Debian. I'd
like to provide that---that's why the LDP is here. 

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From: [email-masked] (Matt Welsh)
Subject: Re: LDP documentation and the FSF
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 1994 08:59:42 +0200

[email-masked] (Greenfie) writes:
> Well, currently all the FSF documentation I've seen is geared towards a
> specific product of the FSF---Emacs, or GCC, or the C library. The
> integration of all of these tools is what the Linux operating system really
> gets its character from.  I could read all of the FSF documentation and
> still not understand how to accomplish I/O redirection, unless it's
> documented in the bash manual, if such a thing exists.

RMS says that this is the next thing that they want to work on---they're
working on a UNIX tutorial/"user guide" that would possibly be coupled with
the fileutils documentation. He said that you and Karl, working on the LUG,
should get in touch with him BEFORE you write the whole thing, because you
can help each other.

> Well, I don't know if you've looked at the pre-alpha User's Guide... I
> don't even know if it is out of incoming. (The file is named
> "user-alpha-1.tar.gz" if you want it get it from incoming, BTW.) When
> writing the manual, I was thinking about this. Why bother writing another
> Unix manual?

Because it's a free one? Maybe you should talk to RMS about the GNU user's
guide, which is still unmarked territory and still applicable to Linux.
(Or you could produce a version which is.)

> Then again, what would the "GNU User's Guide" be, besides a nice acronym.
> (GUG?) From what little I know of the Hurd, it should be similiar in some
> ways, but as different from Unix and Linux as Plan-9 is,

I'm not thinking of HURD specifically. I'm talking about GNU software,
the "UNIX system" in general, and Linux as a particular instance of that.

> This is a large problem. We encountered this problem when we first started
> the project, and we'll continue to run into it. TeXinfo is a very nice
> system, as is LaTeX. We decided on printed documentation, and we should
> probably stick to it until we could decide on exactly what the new,
> retargeted manuals should cover.

I think that the manuals will be the same, but may include more
"reference-based" material---good indexes and cross-references to other
GNU manuals. In any case, I like the idea of looking at texify and/or
LoTeX as a first step into texinfo, so we don't have to write it
necessarily. (Maybe tweak by hand.)

> Again, we need to know what we're writing before we decide what to call
> them or where we could target them. The "kernel" of the Hurd and Linux are
> dramtically different.

No, I didn't mean to suggest that we'd document Hurd. Not at all. There
*are* many Linux-specific docs that we need, but they can "fit in" with
the other GNU documentation without much work.

> Naah. Well, maybe a few. First and foremost, define a purpose before
> crossing the bridge.

I'm not looking for anything big right now. Just a way to get our work
to fit in place with what the GNU folks are doing.

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End of DOC Digest
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