Re: Central Hurd web (Was: question about booting hurd)
> > This points to a more general problem: I think that we should make
> > one "official" Hurd web site with all important information.
>
> There is, http://hurd.gnu.org/.
I consider this page a nice starting stage of the central resource
keeper/directory at most.
> > Now all the information is spread across the web.
>
> Pick a random topic of interest. Look across the web. You'll find
> lots of information "spread across the web". That's life.
The difference is that there is so much information about most topics
of interest that you can't keep it on one site. You would not be able
just to maintain links to all the stuff. Hurd resources are really
not as huge. In fact there are some (hidden) Hurd directories
pointing to plenty of docs/sites (no i don't mean hurd.gnu.org here).
The best thing is to make one directory of them (if you think it is
not good to keep them directly on site). But it needs to be
maintained and annotated (e.g. what is not up-to-date)
e.g.
http://angg.twu.net/the_hurd_links.html
http://www.fprintf.net/hurd/
> Now, the reality of the situation is that GNU tries its best to
> collect Hurd-specific stuff on hurd.gnu.org
Look above for an idea of what I roughly mean by directory of Hurd
specific stuff. I would merge it with hurd.gnu.org.
> > There are several more or
> > less useful webs with different Hurd texts, links, with more or less
> > up-to-date installation guides. Why should people interested in Hurd
> > surf these hidden sites for the best installation instructions and
> > other Hurd info or even dig it from google (like I did year ago) ?
> "Hidden"? These are works in progress by some of the contributers
> to both the Hurd and Debian GNU/Hurd projects. These guides were
> always intended to end up on the appropriate web sites. Only time and
> energy to maintain them in multiple places prevents that. Consider
> this:
>
> - the author of a guide for installing Debian GNU/Hurd may not be a
> Debian maintainer, or if he is, may have his hands full already with
> his present duties and have no time/energy for maintaining it in
> two places
> - maintaining a guide both on one's home page *and* on the Debian
> site now introduces overhead, so if the author himself is not
> up to the task, someone else in Debian needs to keep the guide in
> synch with "upstream"
> - the upstream guide may be changing from week to week as the design
> of the Hurd is still fluid, so this additional overhead may be
> deemed a waste of effort
> - both upstream and Debian might then agree that until things have
> "settled down" it is not worth the duplication of effort
OK then the cetral site would just have a link to the document
located somewhere else and the synch problems vanishes. You only have
to check the state on linked documents.
> > Wouldn't it be nice if _most_ of the information spread across web
> > was at ONE CENRAL PLACE known to everyone ? Shouldn't we make _one_
> > "official" instalation guide which is up-to-date rather than to have
> > several personal (sometimes unmaintained) texts ? If anybody has
> > something to say he or she could contribute it to the "official" site
> > rather that keeping it at his/her personal site hidden to the world.
>
> Last I checked, nobody is filtering walfield.org. And it is commonly
> known both on irc and on this list (and others) that Neal's guide is
> the best. You use "hidden" in a strange sense.
In fact it was inaccesible (DNS?) when I discovered links to it a few
days ago so I thought it is a dead link.
> > I would make one big site from most of the stuff that is now
> > scattered. And all updates of materials used would take place there.
>
> [ snip ]
>
> > I would mix all the individual sites together.
>
> Why? GNU cannot and will not encompass all the things you envision
> should go into such a site, as not all of them align with their ideals.
> Debian, while more permissive about which sites it will link to and
> which information it will carry on its official web site is still
> narrowly focused on the Debian GNU/Hurd port, and therefore engaging
> in the construction of such a site will diffuse energies away from
> the porting effort itself.
>
> So this leaves us with "so who will make this site if it isn't GNU
> and it isn't Debian"? So far, nobody has stepped to the plate.
I am really curious what sites is not GNU willing to link ? And I
really don't understand how is this sort of hiding relevant
information (yes!) related to GNU ideals. If the situation is like
this then the GNU site really can't be the central Hurd resource.
This is very sad because it is really _THE_ Hurd site :-(
> > It would be useful especially for newcomers and all the people that
> > are interested in the Hurd in general.
>
> If Hurd had reached maturity by this point, I'd be tend to be more
> in agreement with you, but the fact remains that major hurdles in
> design are yet to be overcome. Now is not the time for a big
> publicity push to reach new audiences.
This is interresting - isn't be the most logical step then to shut
down all Hurd webs, pretend that it never existed and to come up with
big pomposity when the Hurd gets stable ? I think this project really
needs developers and should not scare them away.
But I really agree with you it is true that many people can get
disappointed with the Hurd because of temporary problems (like I did
year ago...). I would _strongly_ state at the GNU page that it is
neither stable nor optimized from the performance point to view.
Otherwise many people will go away immediately e.g. after they try to
copy a few files... I would present the Hurd as system under
development not that it is stable as is written at hurd.gnu.org. This
means I would attract developers but tell the rest to wait.
> The information you say
> is "hidden" is not. It is merely inconveniently placed at the moment.
"Inconveniently placed" is more polite version of (unintentionaly)
"hidden". If you admit it is placed inconveniently then why do you
object to place/link it conveniently ?
> > If nobody should want to I could take care of it but I don't run any
> > web server.
>
> On which web server, then? No group that I know of has the high profile
> regarding Hurd that either GNU or Debian do. I cannot think of another
> appropriate place to host an "official, central" web site about Hurd.
Sure, the absolutely most appropriate place would be the GNU site but
if you resist to link to some unwanted stuff and if you seem to be
content with the current situation then I really don't know how to
solve this...
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