Integrating upstream and OS-specific help (was Re: Lack of release targeting in Malone)

[Matthew Paul Thomas]

On May 3, 2006, at 6:55 AM, Matthew East wrote:
>
> On Tue, 2006-05-02 at 11:43 -0700, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> ...
>> This is why Malone makes a distinction between distribution packages 
>> and upstream products.  You should target your fixes to releases of 
>> ubuntu-docs, and Ubuntu drivers should target Ubuntu releases.  If 
>> you feel that a bug should be fixed for Dapper, notify me and I will 
>> take that decision.
>
> The distinction is a tricky one for us, because everyone files bugs in
> ubuntu-docs, and often they are packaging bugs, which we will fix, and
> Daniel will upload. But, I suppose that to be consistent with Malone 
> we really have to continually reassign bugs to the upstream product
> releases, even though we don't release ubuntu-docs anywhere except for
> Ubuntu.
> ...

Jumping wildly off-topic (follow up to ubuntu-doc@), that seems to be a 
structural bug in ubuntu-docs. Perhaps there should be a "Help for 
Gnome-based systems" product, that produces a skeleton help structure 
with categories for help on the entire operating system, and actual 
help for Nautilus, the Gnome panel, and the Gnome utilities. Then 
distributions such as Ubuntu, Debian, Red Hat, and so on can fill out 
OS-specific sections (such as "Installing and configuring software") in 
ways appropriate to them, and make whatever other distribution-specific 
tweaks are necessary. Distributed version control will make this much 
more practical. (For example, Debian and Ubuntu would likely merge from 
each other fairly heavily even in the OS-specific sections.)

The current situation -- with upstream Gnome producing self-contained 
help on Gnome programs, then distributors making completely separate 
stuff -- does nobody any good, least of all the poor people trying to 
use the help. It results in, for example, the sheer silliness of the 
"Ubuntu Desktop Guide" coexisting with the "Desktop User Guide". It 
would be great to get upstream and distributors working more closely 
together to fix this.

-- 
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/