Subject:
Re: Proposed: announcement of anniversary
From:
Stein Gjoen ####@####.####
Date:
21 Sep 2003 21:34:12 -0000
Message-Id: <3F6E19C8.7040109@mail.nyx.net>
I wrote...
Stein Gjoen wrote:
> The Linux Documentation Project is 10 years old and a proposed
> announcement text has been dicussed on the staff list. After minor
> editing it is ready for your comments, and when it is finished we plan
> on distributing this a number of places such as Linux Weekly News,
> Slashdot and more.
>
> All comments and suggestions regarding the text itself as well as
> where to post it are welcome.
OK, an email to Matt Welsh clarified the issue, the very first HOWTO
was the Installation HOWTO; the proposed announcement is now updated
with this bit, see attachment.
The plan is to give you all a week for comments and if nothing
important comes up we will start spreading the announcement far
and wide.
I see Mozillazine announced their 5-year anniversary and their
presentation was rather good and complete. I hope we can put
together something similar on our web pages.
Please send your comments and ideas,
Best regards,
Stein Gjoen
The Linux Documentation Project (TLDP) is happy to announce its 10 year
anniversary!
Once upon a time there was a general consensus that Unix in general, and Linux
in particular, lacked good documentation. Matt Welsh decided to do something
about this and wrote the first Linux HOWTO, the Installation HOWTO the
first of what became a long series of focused, solution oriented
documents. It became a movement just like Linux itself. More and more
people joined in on the effort and tools were created and documents were written,
translated and published.
Ten years later, it is no exaggeration to say this issue has been dealt
with, thoroughly: TLDP today is one of the largest Internet projects,
where a few hundred people have written several hundred documents, from
small manual pages to in depth guides that span over a hundred pages,
covering nearly all aspects of Linux.
See the stats sidebar for the figures.
And it is all free, like open source software itself. In fact many Linux
distributions include a complete TLDP document set with the installation
to help the newcomer as well as the more experienced user.
TLDP is fully multi-lingual, people work and help on tools, review and
check, translate, publish and update.
All this requires work, and a core group of a few dozen aid the
authors through a series of mailing lists. In addition, TLDP is pleased
to acknowledge support from numerous companies over the years, including
Red Hat and IBM.
TLDP continues to grow still, in numbers of documents, supported
languages and also new services to better help an ever increasing
audience. To achieve this, TLDP is always looking for new volunteers
to join, ranging from authors, to programmers, to reviewers.
Some statistics
Authors: more than 450
Documents: more than 470
Languages: 14
Mailing lists: 11
Subscribers: more than 400
Web mirrors: 350
Why become an author?
One of the most common ways people come to join TLDP is when they have
already written up notes on a problem they solved, be it new hardware,
an installation, troubleshooting or something else. Frequently people
realize others could benefit from these notes and submit them for
inclusion.
It is also a simple way of joining the world of free software, one that
does not require a 24 hour connection to the net to stay current.
Documentation follows a calmer path, a necessity since correct documents
will always be more important than fast but inaccurate documents.
No matter the reason, documentation is important to help others in
using their system to the fullest.
When TLDP receives a new document it is first given an initial review to
see how well it fits in and whether it overlaps with existing documents.
Sometimes the best solution is to amend the old document rather than make a
new one. Also TLDP helps with the documentation infrastructure that
makes it possible to produce the documents in a wide range of formats,
from the simplest plain text to typesetting for printing books. Next
comes publication where the document is included in the archive and
put on the web, not just on the main web pages but also on over 100
mirrors all over the world. From then on the author interacts with TLDP
in updating and maintaining the document.
Further information
For more information, please visit http://www.tldp.org
and read the LDP FAQ http://www.tldp.org/FAQ/LDP-FAQ/index.html
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