[FM Discuss] floss manuals support

[adam]

thanks heaps!!!!

I will definitely use this letter...We got a no from Mellon but I might
try next Sloan, and if we get as far I think this will be a useful
letter of support.

adam




On Tue, 2010-07-20 at 16:22 +0200, Micz Flor wrote:
> On Mon, 2010-07-19 at 15:33 +0200, adam hyde wrote:
> > So, to do this we need to grow. To grow we need resources. To get
> > resources we need funders (and work). And to get funders (or work)
> > we
> > need you. 
> 
> hi everybody, find enclosed some honest praise. my feeling is that
> floss manuals could really benefit from similar letters by other
> software maintainers and developers who have their documentation
> hosted on your site. if you only get half of the names to support you,
> you would have a portfolio that would really help to open doors. all
> the best and get some writing going! micz
> 
> --- snip ---
> 
> Re: Floss Manuals
> 
> Sourcefabric is a software development organisation aiming to provide
> quality open source tools for journalism. We are a not-for-profit
> organisation, based in Prague with branches in Berlin and Toronto.
> After ten years in the field of open source development, we have
> recently migrated all our documentation to Floss Manuals. 
> 
> Documentation is the first contact with most software. Open source
> projects benefit from good documentation, since it can substitute
> commercial support. In that sense Floss Manuals is invaluable to the
> open source community by providing a professional, reliable and free
> documentation tool. What has become very valuable to us is the
> integration of the print on demand playout. Many of our client
> organisations are in areas with limited Internet access and benefit
> from a „solid“, offline manual in print. I would go as far as to point
> that to us, this is one of the strongest features.
> 
> Floss Manuals also serves as a platform for open source projects by
> providing a central point of entry to the open source world, bringing
> together software from all areas such as audio editing, office tools,
> CMS, CRM, vector graphics, etc. 
> 
> We are now also planning Book Sprints to tackle the issue of
> delivering fully fledged documentation shortly after a software
> release. Usually, the documentation writing requires a lot of time and
> energy. Working with Floss Manuals and hiring their services for a
> Book Sprint, within a week of your release you have a finished manual
> in the shop (literally). The first will happen in October and will
> utilise their new software Booki which we have been testing and are
> very excited about, especially for the extended features regarding
> version numbers of software manuals.
> 
> We also see the Book Sprints as a way of returning some of the benefit
> that Floss Manuals have brought to us. Building a business model on
> open source solutions is a tough call and Floss Manuals at this stage
> relies on Book Sprints, commissioned features and grants as a source
> of income. We encourage anyone to pick up one of these possibilities
> to support Floss Manuals for the great work they are doing - not only
> by providing tools and hosting manuals, but also by strengthening the
> open source paradigm. In simple words, Floss Manuals is on the move to
> become the Sourceforge of the 21st century. Make sure you have a stake
> in the movement. 
> 
> If you have any further questions, please contact me:
> micz.flor at sourcefabric.org
> 
> Berlin, 20th July 2010
> 
> --
> 
> Micz Flor 
> Directory of Communication, Sourcefabric
> micz.flor at sourcefabric.org 
> 
> Sourcefabric 
> Prinzessinnenstraße 20 
> 10969 Berlin, Germany 
> DE +49 (0)30 44044999
> 
> www.sourcefabric.org 
> www.twitter.com/Sourcefabric 
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