--- Florian Weimer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> * Gerald Pfeifer:
>
> > On Sun, 31 Jul 2005, Daniel Berlin wrote:
> >> For code.
> >> I have never seen such claims made for documentation, since it's much
> >> easier to remove and deal with infringing docs than code.
> >
> > I have seen such statements, by RMS himself.
>
> The official position might have changed (e.g. copyright assignments
> and documentation).
>
I had one thing I'd like to add to this thread:
I spend some amount of time updating various GNU/Linux-related
docs on the web. Before wiki's became popular (or, at least, before
I knew about them), updating a project's docs meant figuring out
how to get the site's source via cvs, learning LinuxDoc/DocBook,
and sending patches or getting commit access. I never got involved
with that.
Now that many projects are using wiki's, I can log in, make
corrections/additions, and log out. Not to mention how simple
most wiki formatting rules are. It's a piece of cake. The only
thing that bugs me is that sometimes the wiki police trample
over some nicely crafted bit of work I've done, but that's not
too often.
Devs on these mailing lists have reapeatedly mentioned how receptive
they are to having more newb-friendly docs contributed, but it's
just *so* *darn* *easy* to work with a wiki that I'm spoiled rotten,
and I'm quickly getting too lazy to start doing it the old way.
(It occurs to me to wonder if tldp is beginning to see fewer
updates to their docs because folks are preferring to use wiki's.)
IMO, it's best to keep wiki's editable only by folks/accounts
that've been approved somehow. It shouldn't be too much trouble
for a wiki maintainer to enable/disable users as-needed. (Though
some folks have mentioned that they monitor the wiki continuously
and are emailed notifications every time a change is made, so
maybe it's not necessary to only allow approved contributors.)
Anyhow, that's my opinion FWIW, coming from someone who writes
pretty good newb-friendly docs, on various wiki's, every now and
again. IMO, if there's some issue with licensing/copyright and
wiki's for GNU projects, it should be straightened out so everyone
can easily start contributing to the docs, wiki-style. That seems
to be the future of web docs AFAICT.
---John
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