[ZDP] O'Reilly open documentation forum

[Patrick Phalen]

from this week's Linux Weekly News (http://www.lwn.net):
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Talk about open documentation. O'Reilly and Associates has set up an
online forum to discuss the best way to go about creating open
documents. There are a lot of issues involved in the creation of such
documents, including "...quality control, Internet-time release
schedules, the big-picture thinking required to keep the book's balance
and structure strong during updates, risks and benefits of forking,
adequate compensation for writers and publishers, dealing with the
natural tendency to want to hide work in progress with competitive
publishers..." 

This forum, as of this writing, has only seen about a dozen postings.
It's time to get some more people involved. Free documentation for our
free operating system has come a long way in the last year. Consider,
for example, how much richer we are for having access to: 


Gimp: The Official Handbook 

Using Samba 

GTK+/GNOME Application Development 

These books all come out in 1999. Wouldn't it be nice to have far more
free books show up in 2000 and beyond? 

Free documentation is just as important as free software, and we have
all too little of it. The process of producing free documentation is
different from that which creates software. While free software
developers have a whole set of tools, procedures, licenses, and
experience to work with, those who would produce documentation on the
same scale are still blazing the trail. 

If you would like to see more free, high-quality documentation like the
books listed above, please consider helping out the process somewhat.
Head on over to the O'Reilly forum, think about the issues, and
contribute your thoughts to the cause.