On 12 Apr, Mike Bilow wrote:
> I am not so sure I support the idea of abandoning the HOWTO format. Since this
> is the accepted document delivery model for Linux, we get a lot of exposure to
> non-hams who may become interested in ham radio through Linux. We get free
> exposure in all sorts of places with quasi-official status, such as the
> hardcopy LDP collections put out by Yggdrasil and Red Hat. And, of course, we
> are included with every distribution right out of the box.
Responses to these :)
1> The LDP may decide it is no longer to be a HOWTO no matter how much
you'd like it to be.
2> The hardcopy books are now getting too large and recent editions
have chosen not to publish a large number of HOWTO documents, the
HAM-HOWTO is one of those.
3> There are better ways of gaining new recruits to the hobby.
> Another point in favor of HOWTO format is that there is already a software
> infrastructure for automatic conversion of SGML source to HTML and most other
> formats considered generally useful. As a result, if the document source is
> maintained as SGML source as a HOWTO, exporting it to HTML is a completely
> automatic process.
That's easily handled. My intention was in fact to have the web based
database emit LinuxDoc SGML formatted output.
> QST, of all things, is perhaps the ideal development model. Unique among
> modern publications, its columns have "conductors" rather than "authors." Maybe
> what the HOWTO author really needs is a title change to "conductor?"
The authoring process is a pain in the butt to do collaboratively.
Tools like CVS make it less painful but are probably beyond the reach
of many amateur radio operators. My thinking extended more to having a
web based submission form for software authors and users to
submit/update entries to the database.
Terry
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