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Re: Separating dpkg doc appendices from policy?



Sorry about the delay in replying to your message about this.

Brian Ryans <brian.l.ryans@gmail.com> writes:

> I was reading http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Policy, and saw the h2 'Get
> involved'. The second li [1] piqued my interest. Thus, I've several
> questions for -policy@:

> 1. What kind of time and connectivity commitments would be expected in
>    regard to this endeavor should I decide to take it on? I ask, as I
>    don't have full-time connectivity, although it is on a fairly regular
>    basis.

Since Policy is maintained in Git, and since no one is currently working
on this, I don't think there are any particular connectivity requirements
at all.  You can clone the Git repository locally and work completely
off-line and then submit a patch when you have completed some part of the
work.  (I recommend producing a series of patches as you finish chunks of
the work rather than one huge patch at the end.)

> 2. From my reading of [1], not much technical skill is needed, other
>    than being able to read well the current Policy and being able to
>    interact effectively with BTS. Is this correct?

That's correct.

I think this task probably breaks down into a few steps, roughly like:

* Inventory the current appendices in the Policy manual and classify
  things into a few different buckets: obsolete bits that should go away
  entirely, dpkg documentation that should move to dpkg, useful Policy
  documentation that should move into the main part of Policy, and useful
  non-Policy documentation that should move somewhere like devref.

* Check the dpkg documentation bucket against the current dpkg
  documentation and open bugs with dpkg with the bits that should be added
  to their documentation (preferrably with patches).

* Open Policy bugs for the appendix bits that should move into the main
  text.

* Open devref bugs for the useful information that should live there
  instead.

* Submit a Policy patch to remove all the bits that have been moved or
  that are completely obsolete.

> In summary I'm looking for pointers on getting started with this
> project. I _do_ have some other questions for the list, but I feel those
> would be best saved until I see whether my situation meshes well with my
> intent to help Debian in this regard.

I think it meshes quite well.  I don't believe anyone else is working on
this; I keep getting tempted to do so, but I have oodles of other things I
should be working on and won't realistically get to it any time soon.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>


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