Sec: Unclassified The FAQ Guide and LocalHelp

[Stoffers, Robert LAC]

Firstly, let me apologise for my email client breaking up posts etc, I'm at work and Lookout Express is all I've got.

Yes, the FAQ Guide is nearing completion. I want to go over it again once I have a working X in Breezy (I'm working on it) to make sure everything is factually correct, once that's done and both Matt and myself are happy we will ask people to read and review it for us. I took a current copy of the FAQ Guide to my local LUG meeting last night and everyone was quite impressed by it. I feel that as this doc is almost done it would be silly for us to break it up now into local help before Breezy is released. After Breezy, its fair game and if the group then decides that local help is the way to go then so be it. 

I have heard both sides of the augment regarding licensing now. I agree that it would be good for apps to be able to use our docs under the GPL, but looking at what we have I don't see anything most people could use outside of Ubuntu at the moment. The only document that is near completion is the FAQ Guide at this stage, it would be best for us to concentrate on what we have for Breezy and then make sweeping changes when we have a full development cycle to implement them. 

I have one further suggestion that could satisfy both camps. Of cause, both have to give to gain in this example but at least it addresses most of the issues that have been bought up:

1. Keep the existing licensing system we have now, discuss changes after Breezy.
    -  There is only four contributors to the FAQ, two of us are willing to go with a GPL licence at some stage. That's 50% already.
2. Make the FAQ Guide the front page of Yelp
    - The FAQ already covers most of the ground LocalHelp does and its already written
3. Scrap LocalHelp, licence the content under the GFDL and CC-BY-SA (so is compatible with the FAQ Guide) and add some of it to the FAQ Guide, eg "If you're new to Ubuntu 5.10".
4. Write these few additional sections.
5. Release with Breezy as Yelp main page.
6. Talk about licence changes after Breezy.

I feel that everyone is more likely to be happy with this approach as everyone gets some of that they want. Both sides to this argument have good ideas and we have to work together to make this happen.


Robert Stoffers