[FM discuss] FM to be at wikimania

[Julian Oliver]

hola list,

..on or around Sun, Jul 01, 2007 at 07:24:36PM +0200, adam hyde said:
> 
> Good news...it seems FM is going to be at Wikipedias Wikimania
> conference in Taiwan next month!! :)

congratz!

> 
> I made a proposal to do a workshop on writing free documentation and it
> was accepted:
> http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:AH1
> 
> Of course its quite a long trip and expensive, so I was not sure if I
> could go unless I could find some funds for the travel. I discussed the
> opportunity with Rene Post from Cleanbits (cleanbits.nl) a socially
> oriented business (it certifies if ISPs are carbon neutral) and he has
> offered to pay my ticket!
> 
> so! its on for Aug 3,4,5...
>
> There is also a presentation that I will give about the aims of FM, the
> good work everyone has been doing on the manuals, and how it all works. 
> 
> Having FM present at the conference is a fantastic opportunity.  As well
> as being extremely informative it offers a chance to get in the middle
> of this wikimania and highlight what we are doing and the importance of
> filling the free documentation void.
>

good words..

> The Wikimania event could also be a good time to mark a bigger push for
> raising our profile...what do you guys think? Is the FM ready for it?
> Does FM need to be improved in terms of the site, editing processes,
> functionality? Is the site sending out the right message? 
> 

i think it's ready. looking over the manuals the quality and style is
good and good overall. i would like to make the time to add another section
before hand - as a personal ambition - but believe it's ready now
nonetheless.

my only thought might be whether it'd be wise to come up with an agreed
FM formatting convention: footnotes, typography and image sizes seem a
little varied across the manuals. perhaps this isn't a problem, let alone 
something to enforce. personally speaking, i tend to find continuity in 
these areas give me - as a regular reader of technical documentation - 
greater confidence in the material in general.

if one of the objectives of FM is to provide printable documentation for
purpose of redistribution and/or archiving, perhaps formatting is
something to pay special attention to.

(worth mentioning that my own hack-and-slash approach to formatting should 
not be taken as an example.. i'm far from good at it and welcome those 
with real experience in this area to give me working advice.)

> It would be good to have this discussion so that if there is agreement
> fm should use the conf as a catalyst to raise our profile then I have
> time to implement changes before wikimania...
> 

regarding the documentation release license, i'm in favour of a GPL
doc license but as yet undecided (mostly due to not having read it yet)
about the GPLv3 over the good 'ol battle-tested GPLv2.

when i write the new section for FM i will be publishing some code and
will place that under a GPLv2 or v3 license. for this reason the 
convenience of my documentation being released under the same license is 
pretty desireable: examples/art/docs in one tarball under one license.

choice,

julian

Gijon, Asturias, Spain.

-- 
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