Here I go stating the obvious again, but it seems what we are saying is
that the archives of this list, plus the documentation that already is
in existence, makes up a "book" for those who can access it, ergo
what is required might not be an _author_ to create a new, comprehensive
restatement but rather an __editor__ to select from the documentation
which exists (man pages, LWQ, FAQ lists, et cetera) and compile a compendium.
This editor would preferably _NOT_ be someone who "knows a lot about qmail"
they would be a quality technical writer with perhaps gardening background.
This editor would be assigned the task, they would have to start from zero
(zero being a PC with the debian potato installed on it by someone else)
and configure and maintain, telling their story and including the documents
they find most helpful (with permission of the various authors). That's the
first half, in which Linda Potter goes from zero to MTA administrator.
For the second half, Linda Potter (our fictionalized hero) builds on the
experiences in the first half, going on to install custom patches, to do
what exactly? Maybe the first half is all that is needed.
Potato to qmail+EZMLM in five or six short chapters.
I addition to people participating in this thread on the qmail list,
I am CCing a retired technical writer who teaches at UMKC in case this
project might appeal to them for collaboration later this summer.
Russ Allbery wrote:
>
> Rodney Edwards <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> > Qmail & ezmlm is now getting so popular that someone has to get their
> > arse in gear and get a book to print. The Idea is a certain winner so
> > com'on O'reilly, Que, or Sam's if your listening in get your finger out
> > guys where drowning out here.
>
> I don't believe that publisher interest is the hold-up. To publish a
> book, someone has to write it first, and one would hope that the people
> doing so would actually know a decent amount about qmail. :) Those
> people are somewhat rare; qmail hasn't been around for that long yet.
>
> --
> Russ Allbery ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
--
David Nicol 816.235.1187 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
find / -name core|perl -ne'chomp;unlink'
