[RFC] Legacy documentation

[Eric Rostetter]

Quoting Karsten Wade <kwade at redhat.com>:

> I'm hoping you are interested in taking over some documentation.

Not much response yet, so I'll join in.
 
> 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.

Okay.  Didn't have anyone formally say this until now.  Good to know.

> 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 Legacy (FL) has its own docs for this topic, so I'd rather not move
this to FL really.  But it would be worth us giving this a glance, and seeing
if we should include any of it in our documentation...

So, I'd say this is a Fedora doc, and doesn't need to be moved to FL.

> 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  It may not be out of date,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.

This seems to be mostly version independent, and could be made version
independent without much work.  I'd say this should stay at Fedora docs,
and FL should probably link to it for reference.

So, again, I'd say this is a Fedora doc, and doesn't need to be moved to FL.
 
> Package List for Fedora Core 2
>   http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/package-list/fc2/
> 
>   I don't know anything about this or its value.

We could archive these at FL if Fedora Project wanted us to.  We've discussed
but not done anything about setting up an "archive area" for such things
as this and release notes, etc.

If you want us to take this over, just say so, and we will.

> 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.

Same as above.  We can archive them if you want.  Just let us know.
 
> 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.

Same as above.  We can archive this if you want, but I don't think we
would update it.  So if you want us to make it a static archived copy,
we can do that.
 
> ## 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.

What is involved for this to happen?  I'd be interested, if it can be
done in such as fashion as to not be overwealming.

> 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.

Legacy docs could be done by our legacy staff, in theory, though FL also
doesn't have enough writers at this time to do even its own docs properly.
 
> 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.

Yes, FL would mostly be archiving static files, and only occasionally updating
docs.  So it should be minimal work.
 
> 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.

I'll volunteer, as long as what ever is required of me doesn't overwhelm me.
By that I mean, if you say sign up to our low volume mailing list, I'm okay
with that; but if you say sign up to our very high volume mailing list,
I've got a problem (too much mail already).

> By integrating the efforts, current docs could be written with Legacy
> needs in mind.  Whatever those turn out to be.

Sounds good, in theory at least.  If nothing else, we could at least
plan a transition for them from Fedora to Fedora Legacy.  This alone
would be a Good Thing.
  
> 2. Legacy Project can form the Legacy Docs as a sub-project.

At this time, we've not enough people interested to support such a project.
It would be an option if people do become interested in such a project
though.

> 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.

This was our original idea I think, but it is difficult as we don't
track Fedora docs, so we don't know what is there, when it becomes EOL,
how to transition them, etc.  Joining as a sub-group would probably
give us the info we need to track and transition the docs properly.

> For an overview of the docs process:
> 
> http://fedora.redhat.com/participate/documentation-quick-start/

I'll check this out when I get time (sorry).
 
> Our Wiki page is still being added to, we'll be adding process
> documentation through this medium:
> 
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject

I'll try to check that out when I get time.

> Thanks - Karsten

The above is just my current thoughts.  I'll probably write back in a couple
of days with some more thought-out ideas.

-- 
Eric Rostetter