Re: (long) Re: [ode] Re: cart before the horse


Wade Hampton (whampton@staffnet.com)
Thu, 13 Jan 2000 11:14:32 -0500


Deb Richardson wrote:
>
> "Paul M. Foster" wrote:
>
> > Maybe we should all just shut up now. ;-}
>
> Heh...that's certainly not what I'm suggesting :) I'm actually quite
> excited by the interest and energy I've seen demonstrated in the
[snip]
>
> First, I think we need to come up with (and I hate to use the term) a
> "mission statement" for this group. We have to define this group's
> current purpose. Why are we having these discussions? What do we hope
> this group will achieve? What is our first "baby step"? When we have
> that mission statement (and I recommend that it be a reasonably
> conservative one), we can then begin distributing that mission statement
> around the community -- a combination of a press release and an open
> invitation to any and all interested parties to take part.
A start might be:

The goal of the ODE is to define an extensible framework for
quality, platform agnostic, open source documentation, including
formats, content, management, tools, and recommended procedures.

> We also need a good name for the group. "Open Documentation
> Environment" isn't appropriate -- that's a name for a software package,
> not for a discussion group.

ODF -- the Open Documentation Framework?

Name follows the mission statement?
> And chances are that we'll need a website. I hereby offer hosting space
> for this site on the Open Source Writers Group server. If at some point
> we decide this group needs its own separate domain, we can arrange for
> virtual hosting on the OSWG site. Either way, I've got space on the
> server, and I'm happy to donate it. I'll even donate some time to
> working on the website if need be. At first, it's likely to be a small
> site, so it shouldn't be that time consuming.
Thanks! Maybe M$ will pay for your domain name :)

The next step is to come up with a plan of what the group wants
to accomplish? The first item on that plan should be to define
the requirements for documentaion including:

- required data items (doc name, doc number, versioning, author,
license...)
- documentation formats
- synopsis
- items to facilitate indexing
- etc.

Cheers,

-- 
W. Wade, Hampton  <whampton@staffnet.com>  
Support:  Linux Knowledge Base Organization  http://linuxkb.org/
Linux is stability, performance, flexibility, and overall very fun!
The difference between `Unstable' and `Usable' is only two characters:
NT



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu Jan 13 2000 - 11:18:16 EST