[FM Discuss] update

[adam hyde]

hi,


Just a quick update about some fm bits n pieces.

* FM MIGRATION
FM is migrating to Booki (as mentioned in many past posts). For those
that are not familiar with the story - fm currently runs on TWiki and we
built a new platform (Booki) to replace it. You can see Booki here -
http://www.booki.cc

Booki will be where you write FM manuals and hence we will migrate all
the user accounts to booki when we close the TWiki install. We will also
migrate all the manuals of course. Aco is working a lot on Booki to make
this all happen, we hoped it would be this week but Aco got excited and
is adding some new features and testing etc so it will be next week. 

So, while Booki is where the books will be written, en.flossmanuals.net
will not be managed by Booki but will be managed by another software
called "Booki Publisher" (currently ready and you can see it here with
Fm skins - http://clean.flossmanuals.net/). Booki Publisher will pull
manuals from booki and enable users to read them in nice templated
fashion, add comments, remix manuals etc. It will also have a blog etc.
There are some nice new features such as css control of the look and
feel of remixed PDF, a new chat widget, much better admin tools, also
the architecture is very simple to extend so I hope we can get more
people developing widgets and plugins (Booki Publisher is deliberately
written in PHP will a flat file architecture to assist this). Booki
Publisher is a standalone software, also released under GPL and
available for anyone wanting to set up a site similar to FM for
publishing books produced in Booki.

For the FM community the fm website will look the same, and the major
change will be that booki is a better tool for collaborating - it looks
different but is easier and it effectively gives the contributors
("you") and maintainers more control. The process for publishing to fm
will work pretty much the same - anyone can export a FM manual in a book
formatted pdf/epub etc from booki but to publish to the fm site you need
to ask John (fm admin) to do it via a booki communication channel (chat
etc) or the fm mailing list.

All softwares - booki, booki publisher and objavi (the pdf generation
engine) are free softwares developed by
fm...http://booki-dev.flossmanuals.net).

So, thats a little bit of whats happening with migration...more as we
go...

* BOOK SPRINTS
While booki is still in beta form it is getting some use...it is being
used this week by a group of artists in for a book sprint in Latvia
(http://www.pixelache.ac/helsinki/herbologies-expedition-kurzeme/), a
group of artists in Berlin working on an urban mapping project, and for
an update of Collaborative Futures (I will post more info on this
shortly). I think they all use CC licenses (Booki is _only_ for the
production of freely licensed works)

* PROCESSING BOOK SPRINT
There is a book sprint in August for processing in French. I dont know
the dates yet but will post. 

* MOZILLA COMMUNITY MEETING	
I am going to the Mozilla Community meeting in a few weeks. I think I am
doing two presentations about book sprints, fm, and booki. Will write a
report when I get back.

* Core Funding
Currently I am looking at how to get a little core funding for FM. We
havent ever asked for any and we have been doing pretty well for a long
time but i think its about time we stabilised things a little
financially. We actually dont need a lot so I am first approaching HIVOS
(http://www.hivos.nl) and then I will approach some other orgs depending
on how that goes. I am also thinking about approaching some of the
monster orgs we work with for some sponsorship, but lets try Hivos first
and see how we go. Also, if anyone has ideas for core funding or wants
to make my life simple and write fm a cheque then drop me a line :) 

:)

adam




-- 
Adam Hyde
Founder FLOSS Manuals
German mobile : + 49 177 4935122
Email : adam at flossmanuals.net
irc: irc.freenode.net #flossmanuals

"Free manuals for free software"
http://www.flossmanuals.net/about