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Josh Saddler | 1 Apr 2008 11:08
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2008.0 beta1 handbook status

All right, the handbooks for the 2008.0 beta1 release are finished and 
published.

Fix them if needed, but they should be perfect, if I do say so myself. 
Treat 'em as any other normal handbook issue when it comes to bumps.

Keep the draft disclaimers until 2008.0 final is released, whenever that 
will be.

In the mean time, the tracker bug is still up here:
http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=197814

I'm going to bed.
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Xavier Neys | 1 Apr 2008 18:13
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Re: 2008.0 beta1 handbook status

Josh Saddler wrote:
> All right, the handbooks for the 2008.0 beta1 release are finished and 
> published.

Kudos. Thanks a lot for your efforts.

> I'm going to bed.
Good night.

--

-- 
/  Xavier Neys
\_ Gentoo Documentation Project
/
/\ http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/
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Jose Luis Rivero | 26 Apr 2008 21:18
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Improving organization during beta release

Hi *:

I want to send this mail to make us think a little in how we are
handling the documentation during the beta releases. The documentation
itself it's perfect (great job Josh), but there are a couple of points 
which I think are confusing the users about what documents 
they should use.

 1. Currently, there are no official maintained handbooks. We have the
 networking handbooks (/doc/*/handbook/handbook-*) marked as draft and 
 the networkless docs which refers to latest stable release (2007.0) 
 marked as unmaintained.

 2. There are no docs covering a networking installation for the latest
 stable release. Users who don't want to use the beta can't find the
 docs to make a network based installation since they were overwriting
 by 2008.0 (which is still a beta).

One idea for next time could be keeping current and networkless
handbooks maintained until the release reaches an stable status and
develop the new docs in /doc/*/handbook/beta/ and  /doc/*/handbook/200X.Y/.

Comments, thoughts, flames, are all welcome.

P.D: Excuse me if I'm missing something and the points exposed here are
completely wrong.

--

-- 
Jose Luis Rivero <yoswink <at> gentoo.org>
Gentoo/Doc Gentoo/Alpha
(Continue reading)

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Xavier Neys | 26 Apr 2008 21:42
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Re: Improving organization during beta release

Jose Luis Rivero wrote:
> Hi *:

>  1. Currently, there are no official maintained handbooks. We have the
>  networking handbooks (/doc/*/handbook/handbook-*) marked as draft and 
>  the networkless docs which refers to latest stable release (2007.0) 
>  marked as unmaintained.

/doc/en/handbook/ and /doc/en/handbook/2008.0/ are officially maintained.
Them being marked 'draft' does not make them any less official.
/doc/en/handbook/2007.0/ is officially unmaintained.

>  2. There are no docs covering a networking installation for the latest
>  stable release. Users who don't want to use the beta can't find the
>  docs to make a network based installation since they were overwriting
>  by 2008.0 (which is still a beta).

draft was moved up because anyone using the latest docs and a 2007.0 media on 
a modern system (read about 1 year old or more recent) could not go very far 
in the installation process. Besides, those completing a 2007.0 install would 
then need to upgrade some many packages that it was deemed better to move up 
the draft version.

> One idea for next time could be keeping current and networkless
> handbooks maintained until the release reaches an stable status and

Networkless will always be under xxxx.y
2007.0 is still there, 2008.0 is already there.
If anything needs to change, the arches that have a GUI installer would only 
get "pop CD into your reader, boot, follow on-screen instructions". Done!
(Continue reading)

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Jose Luis Rivero | 27 Apr 2008 06:34
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Re: Improving organization during beta release

On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 09:42:38PM +0200, Xavier Neys wrote:
> Jose Luis Rivero wrote:
>>  1. Currently, there are no official maintained handbooks. We have the
>>  networking handbooks (/doc/*/handbook/handbook-*) marked as draft and  
>> the networkless docs which refers to latest stable release (2007.0)  
>> marked as unmaintained.
>
> /doc/en/handbook/ and /doc/en/handbook/2008.0/ are officially maintained.
> Them being marked 'draft' does not make them any less official.

"Disclaimer :  This document is a work in progress and should not be
considered official yet."

Probably people reading this is not going to consider them as official.

>
>>  2. There are no docs covering a networking installation for the latest
>>  stable release. Users who don't want to use the beta can't find the
>>  docs to make a network based installation since they were overwriting
>>  by 2008.0 (which is still a beta).
>
> draft was moved up because anyone using the latest docs and a 2007.0 media 
> on a modern system (read about 1 year old or more recent) could not go very 
> far in the installation process. Besides, those completing a 2007.0 install 
> would then need to upgrade some many packages that it was deemed better to 
> move up the draft version.

Maybe some kind of warning or note about this can help the people to
understand the situation.
(Continue reading)

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Josh Saddler | 27 Apr 2008 07:04
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Re: Improving organization during beta release

Jose Luis Rivero wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 09:42:38PM +0200, Xavier Neys wrote:
>> Jose Luis Rivero wrote:
>>>  1. Currently, there are no official maintained handbooks. We have the
>>>  networking handbooks (/doc/*/handbook/handbook-*) marked as draft and  
>>> the networkless docs which refers to latest stable release (2007.0)  
>>> marked as unmaintained.
>> /doc/en/handbook/ and /doc/en/handbook/2008.0/ are officially maintained.
>> Them being marked 'draft' does not make them any less official.
> 
> "Disclaimer :  This document is a work in progress and should not be
> considered official yet."
> 
> Probably people reading this is not going to consider them as official.
> 
>>>  2. There are no docs covering a networking installation for the latest
>>>  stable release. Users who don't want to use the beta can't find the
>>>  docs to make a network based installation since they were overwriting
>>>  by 2008.0 (which is still a beta).
>> draft was moved up because anyone using the latest docs and a 2007.0 media 
>> on a modern system (read about 1 year old or more recent) could not go very 
>> far in the installation process. Besides, those completing a 2007.0 install 
>> would then need to upgrade some many packages that it was deemed better to 
>> move up the draft version.
> 
> Maybe some kind of warning or note about this can help the people to
> understand the situation.
> 
>>> One idea for next time could be keeping current and networkless
>>> handbooks maintained until the release reaches an stable status and
(Continue reading)

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Jose Luis Rivero | 27 Apr 2008 13:13
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Re: Improving organization during beta release

On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 10:04:04PM -0700, Josh Saddler wrote:
> As you know, the packages are still stable whether in 2007.0 or 
> 2008.0betaX. There's no practical difference between the two, though 
> obviously you won't have so many updates if you use a beta tarball. The 
> only difference is the LiveCDs/DVDs.

Well, with the new release you are using different (and uptodate) stages 
than current ones and different profiles, which could generate some
problems under specific circunstances, this is one of the reason what
the beta is for, imho.

But you are right, the packages are the same.

> Assuming this trend of public betas continues through coming releases, we 
> may want to add a note explaining this -- that the installed system and 
> packages are identical to the latest versions in Portage; it's only the 
> media that's "beta". Or we could even add one now, and make it conditional 
> on something like an "is_beta" key or similar in the TOC.
>

I'm for working in xxxx.y and draft/ until the stable release is done 
(if there is no special cases like currently). Your idea can help people
to understand what a beta release for Gentoo means but please apply it
along with not overwritting current handbooks until the release is
stable.

Maybe you can make a new 'disclaimer' value, beta_release (or whatever)
and put it instead of draft, which usually refers to docs non finalized
or waiting for review, which is not the case.
(Continue reading)

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Josh Saddler | 27 Apr 2008 22:44
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Re: Improving organization during beta release

Jose Luis Rivero wrote:
> I'm for working in xxxx.y and draft/ until the stable release is done 
> (if there is no special cases like currently). Your idea can help people
> to understand what a beta release for Gentoo means but please apply it
> along with not overwritting current handbooks until the release is
> stable.
> 
> Maybe you can make a new 'disclaimer' value, beta_release (or whatever)
> and put it instead of draft, which usually refers to docs non finalized
> or waiting for review, which is not the case.

I, personally, hate the whole business of copying stuff to draft/ and 
then back again. It's a pain, and there's some risk of forgetting stuff 
or not getting it moved or forgetting to delete old files (this happened 
once or twice with this release). That's why I dispensed with doing 
draft/2008.0/ and just went straight to the toplevel dir.

However, draft is nice to have a workspace for committing networked HB 
changes to make sure they don't get lost. That's the only reason I can 
think of for not punting it entirely.

I suppose if we were on git, it'd be easier to make our commits but not 
push them onto the final versions. Maybe. Who knows. :)

As I see it, we have a few options:

1. Keep the "draft" disclaimer for the beta handbooks, the only live 
versions available.
2. Add listings for "beta" in addition to "latest stable" (really old) 
in our index, and link to them.
(Continue reading)

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Sven Vermeulen | 28 Apr 2008 12:48
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Re: Improving organization during beta release

On 4/27/08, Josh Saddler <nightmorph <at> gentoo.org> wrote:
> I, personally, hate the whole business of copying stuff to draft/ and then
> back again. It's a pain, and there's some risk of forgetting stuff or not
> getting it moved or forgetting to delete old files (this happened once or
> twice with this release). That's why I dispensed with doing draft/2008.0/
> and just went straight to the toplevel dir.
[...]
> As I see it, we have a few options:
>
> 1. Keep the "draft" disclaimer for the beta handbooks, the only live
> versions available.
> 2. Add listings for "beta" in addition to "latest stable" (really old) in
> our index, and link to them.
> 3. Add disclaimer to TOC for beta status. Replaces(?) draft disclaimer.
> 4. Ditch the draft disclaimer, and instead just consider each handbook a
> "release" handbook. We just use the beta stage/file/mirror names. Since the
> only thing that's in testing is the CDs, really.
>
> I'm all for 1, 3, or 4. My personal favorite is 4. Thoughts?

Mine is 4 as well. The "2008_beta" handbook for GDP is a "production"
handbook - the release is publically available and all the disclaimers
for the _beta release should automatically apply to its documentation
as well.

If you use 2008_beta, you definitely expect that the handbooks can
contain some minor bugs as well. If you don't want to use the _beta,
you're still free to use the 2007 release media (including docs).
Releng doesn't "support" 2007.0 (i.e. there will not be a 2007 fix) so
afaik, 2007.0 for releng is also unmaintained. Why keep the
(Continue reading)

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Łukasz Damentko | 29 Apr 2008 18:22
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Re: Improving organization during beta release

2008/4/28 Sven Vermeulen <swift <at> gentoo.org>:
> On 4/27/08, Josh Saddler <nightmorph <at> gentoo.org> wrote:
>  > I, personally, hate the whole business of copying stuff to draft/ and then
>  > back again. It's a pain, and there's some risk of forgetting stuff or not
>  > getting it moved or forgetting to delete old files (this happened once or
>  > twice with this release). That's why I dispensed with doing draft/2008.0/
>  > and just went straight to the toplevel dir.
>  [...]
>
> > As I see it, we have a few options:
>  >
>  > 1. Keep the "draft" disclaimer for the beta handbooks, the only live
>  > versions available.
>  > 2. Add listings for "beta" in addition to "latest stable" (really old) in
>  > our index, and link to them.
>  > 3. Add disclaimer to TOC for beta status. Replaces(?) draft disclaimer.
>  > 4. Ditch the draft disclaimer, and instead just consider each handbook a
>  > "release" handbook. We just use the beta stage/file/mirror names. Since the
>  > only thing that's in testing is the CDs, really.
>  >
>  > I'm all for 1, 3, or 4. My personal favorite is 4. Thoughts?
>
>  Mine is 4 as well. The "2008_beta" handbook for GDP is a "production"
>  handbook - the release is publically available and all the disclaimers
>  for the _beta release should automatically apply to its documentation
>  as well.

Yeah. #4 is the best option.
--

-- 
gentoo-doc <at> lists.gentoo.org mailing list
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