I would say a reasonable thing to do is to make a survey on the list
and see the scope of such a book, if one is ever written.
I say this because I believe that for any intellectual project
(writing a book definitely falls in this category), it's always a
fruitful exercise to define the scope of the project first, before
spending further effort. You wan to be clear what you would like to
accomplish in a project. This is one of the basics of any project
management I suppose.
To set up qmail for a home system and to set it up for say millions of
active users require quite a different level of effort and
understanding. The latter of course is much more demanding. So, what
audience the book intends to address? Once the scope of the book is
defined, no one can come back and say "this is a lousy book, it
doesn't talk about this or that... etc".
Regards,
Chin Fang
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> Here I go stating the obvious again, but it seems what we are saying is
> that the archives of this list, plus the documentation that already is
> in existence, makes up a "book" for those who can access it, ergo
>
> what is required might not be an _author_ to create a new, comprehensive
> restatement but rather an __editor__ to select from the documentation
> which exists (man pages, LWQ, FAQ lists, et cetera) and compile a compendium.
>
> This editor would preferably _NOT_ be someone who "knows a lot about qmail"
> they would be a quality technical writer with perhaps gardening background.
>
> This editor would be assigned the task, they would have to start from zero
> (zero being a PC with the debian potato installed on it by someone else)
> and configure and maintain, telling their story and including the documents
> they find most helpful (with permission of the various authors). That's the
> first half, in which Linda Potter goes from zero to MTA administrator.
>
> For the second half, Linda Potter (our fictionalized hero) builds on the
> experiences in the first half, going on to install custom patches, to do
> what exactly? Maybe the first half is all that is needed.
>
> Potato to qmail+EZMLM in five or six short chapters.
>
>
> I addition to people participating in this thread on the qmail list,
> I am CCing a retired technical writer who teaches at UMKC in case this
> project might appeal to them for collaboration later this summer.
[...]
