discuss: Dealing with poor maintenance by maintainers
Subject:
Re: Dealing with poor maintenance by maintainers
From:
Tabatha Persad ####@####.####
Date:
15 May 2002 08:44:44 -0000
Message-Id: <20020515084417.HSYL17166.rwcrmhc51.attbi.com@there>
Hi David,
Yes, I did take a look at the Manifesto. It struck me as a much broader view
of the role and requirements of the LDP. (And you're right, looks like a
couple things could be updated there!)
Did you take a look at the more detailed outline I submitted to the list?
While the Manifesto covers key points, the ideas I had for procedure are more
of a hands-on approach. Should these concepts be covered in the Author
and/or Reviewer and/or Manifesto? I thought that might make this information
more difficult to find than in one doc.
I totally agree that every situation is unique. Many volunteers of the LDP
are seasoned and have been at this for years. Getting started for me was a
slow process, since the process was not clearly defined for me. I lurked on
the mailing list for at least a month, started joining the conversation
slowly, and spent a lot of time asking a hundred questions that I'm sure you
have all answered a trillion times before, which is why I figured a
procedural guide might be handy. It can also strengthen the LDP to publish
this, so that authors and readers of the documentation know what level of
quality to expect, and that every review will be done in the same equitable
way.
Now how to handle abandoned documentation could go either way - it could be
addressed by the proposed guide, or simply incorporated into the license.
Would one of these be more desirable over the other? I'm interested in your
opinion on the GFDL and what you like/dislike about it.
Also, on the subject, have you noticed in some HOWTOs the authors make
comment in the copyright that end up restricting the license? I've run into
a few of these situations, or missing altogether. (Wouldn't that mean it
cannot be edited at all?). Is your idea to interpret all of the existing
"free" licenses, and/or create a new license? Sounds like something authors
could use to make sense of it all!
Thanks for your time (and patience!), I appreciate your input.
Tab
On Wednesday 15 May 2002 03:12, David Lawyer wrote:
> On Tue, May 14, 2002 at 12:22:22PM -0400, Tabatha Persad wrote:
> > So far my list is fairly short - these are things that could definitely
> > be addressed by a process/policy manual:
> > - Process for unmaintained or abandoned documentation
> > - Licensing Requirements
>
> Licensing Requirements are in the Manifesto on our site. Have you read
> it? It may need revising.
>
> I'm thinking of writing a HOWTO on licenses. It's my opinion that all
> the licenses that I've seen are unsatisfactory. They don't protect the
> work from adding advertising to it (including animated advertising).
> The don't require that the only the latest copies be distributed on the
> internet, unless they are labeled otherwise. In this HOWTO I would
> discuss these and all the other problems in detail.
>
> David Lawyer
