The LDP Weekly News

The Linux Documentation Project Weekly News

Issue Number : 15
Publication Date : 2004-04-14
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Table of Contents
1. Documents submitted for review
2. New document proposals
3. Updated HOWTOs, FAQs and Guides
4. News in The LDP world
5. Discussions on The LDP lists
6. Interview with Emma Jane Hogbin
7. HOWTO contribute to The LDP

1. Documents submitted for review

  * Emma Jane was still not happy with the Author Guide and after some
    discussion submitted a [http://cvsview.tldp.org/index.cgi/LDP/guide/
    docbook/LDP-Author-Guide/] new update, merging the contribution section
    into The LDP publishing process section.
   

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2. New document proposals

  * Nico Schottelius wrote a mini-HOWTO about Cryptoloop partial security and
    awaits your comments. The document explains what Cryptoloop is, what it
    is used for and why it is only partially secure. A section also discusses
    solutions to the problem.
   

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3. Updated HOWTOs, FAQs and Guides

  * David Hinds submitted the v2.118 of his [http://tldp.org/HOWTO/
    PCMCIA-HOWTO.html] Linux PCMCIA HOWTO. This version features updated
    lists of supported hardware, updated program version numbers of the
    discussed software and a whole new section about the kernel PCMCIA
    support in 2.4 kernels and higher.
   
  * Christine Lorenz submitted v2.3.0 of the [http://tldp.org/LDP/EVMSUG/html
    /index.html] EVMS User Guide. She is co-author of this document with Joy
    Goodreau and Kylie Smith.
   
  * Walt Penningtons Linux Medicine-HOWTO is now at v2.3. This new release
    has few minor updates.
   

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4. News in The LDP world

  * The LDP Feedback
   
    It has been close to an year since The LDP weekly news was re-started.
    The latest LDPWN is available on the web, mailed to the <news@en.tldp.org
    > mailing list and several important news sources. There is also an RSS
    feed in case you would like to track us with your favorite aggregator. We
    take this opportunity to request you for comments and suggestions for
    improvement. Please send in your feedback to <feedback@en.tldp.org>
   
  * IRC: Freenode Server #tldp room
   
    The Freenode servers we have a #tldp room for IRC. Connect to one of the
    servers at [http://freenode.net/irc_servers.shtml] http://freenode.net/
    irc_servers.shtml and join #tldp.
   

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5. Discussions on The LDP lists

  * Document Licensing Discussion
   
    Rahul Sundaram was [http://lists.tldp.org/index.cgi?1:mss:6964:200404:
    ihpahginmljdgbhooeje] unhappy that he might be volunteering his work to
    document authors that restrict their documentation with a non-free
    license and indicated what he thought would be acceptable licenses. Rick
    Moen [http://lists.tldp.org/index.cgi?1:mss:6965:200404:
    pkdleajpekbbaookkgbd] described what those licenses were and their
    problems (like the DFSG-freeness of GNU FDL 1.2). Rodolfo J. Paiz was of
    the [http://lists.tldp.org/index.cgi?1:mss:6968:200404:
    ehngfbpnepphojhokgdn] opinion that license of a document is an individual
    choice and volunteering for a work with a license that one does not like
    is not obligatory. David Lawyer and Greg Ferguson [http://lists.tldp.org/
    index.cgi?1:mss:6979:200404:claiepedajakajhoajgg] explained the [http://
    lists.tldp.org/index.cgi?1:mss:6982:200404:ifhbolfhjihbhnkaanhb]
    recommendations of The LDP.
   

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6. Interview with Emma Jane Hogbin

Figure 1. Emma Jane Hogbin

[emma]

  * Emma Jane Hogbin, probably the most talkative TLDP volunteer, was very
    enthusiastic when we asked her if she would grant us an interview. Get to
    know Emma Jane:
   

Q: The classical question first: how, why and when did you get involved?

A: Well I've always been a bit of a docco [Editor's Note: that's a
documentation maniac]. Unlike many of my other technically oriented friends,
I actually write notes when I'm trying to install software. And then I go
back and check my notes to make sure things are correctly documented. It
makes life a lot easier if I ever need to install that software again. Just
to give an example: In the first year that I was running Debian Linux on my
laptop I had to re-install the system about half a dozen times. (Yes, I'm as
shocked as you are.) Each time my notes improved and I got a little faster at
performing each of the required steps.

The first publicly available documentation I wrote for a specific application
was for [http://www.htdig.org] ht://dig (a great little search engine). The
document was very well received by my client at the time, and by the ht://dig
community. Although my documentation had always been appreciated at work,
this was the first time I'd received recognition from a community of users.

My first document accepted to the LDP was the [http://www.ibiblio.org/mdw/
HOWTO/ACPI-HOWTO/index.html] ACPI HOWTO. Originally, it was just notes on the
installation process, that I made for myself. These I submitted to various
mailing lists to confirm their accuracy. I got lots of good feedback and
Sebastian Henschel asked me to publish them on-line for the [http://
acpi.sourceforge.net/] ACPI4Linux team. Werner Heuser suggested I submit the
document to The LDP. Tabatha did my language review and started sending me
really polite emails suggesting that maybe I'd like to be a technical
reviewer. The next thing I knew I'd volunteered to re-write the Author Guide
(a total of about nine months work) and suddenly I was a full fledged
technical and meta data reviewer.

My original ACPI HOWTO now needs a major revamp for the 2.6 kernels, and I've
been gearing up to work on that. Ariel Glenn will be helping me with the
re-write (a process I'm actually looking forward to now).

Q: I took the liberty of going through your CV. As far as your employment is
concerned, you seem to do fairly well and in accordance to the subjects you
studied while at the university. But then for TLDP I see you reviewing the
USB Flash Memory HOWTO and the BLFS document, and authoring the ACPI HOWTO.
How did you grow an interest for these?

A: At this point I'm doing two types of reviews: metadata and technical. For
the technical reviews I need to know something about the topic that I'm
reviewing. I currently have a USB key chain and a USB camera, so it was a
good match for me to review Niko's [http://www.ibiblio.org/mdw/HOWTO/
Flash-Memory-HOWTO/index.html] USB Flash Memory HOWTO.

The meta data reviews look at a different set of things, specifically the
markup of the document (does the DocBook/LinuxDoc validate?) and the license
the document is released under. There's a bit more to it than that, but those
are the two things that take the most time on a meta data review. When I'm
doing a meta data review I tend to scan the document for technical/language
inaccuracies as well, but I don't spend a lot of time on it.

Then I have a third set of responsibilities: authoring documents. I'm
currently an author on three documents at The LDP: ACPI HOWTO, The Author
Guide and the [http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/LDP-Reviewer-HOWTO/] Reviewer HOWTO.
The first (ACPI HOWTO) was simply a document that I wrote from my own notes
on a specific problem that I had to solve. The second two documents are more
"process" documents for The LDP. There are a lot of volunteers at The LDP,
many of whom perform critical roles in the publication of documents. I've
been working on getting some of these processes documented so that if a
volunteer ever wanted help, or decided to retire, there would be instructions
on how to perform that volunteer's tasks.

Q: Did you ever have difficulties or encounter restrictions, being a woman at
TLDP? And the eternal question: What should we do to get more female
volunteers? What should men do to get more women to join this and other Linux
projects?

A: The only restriction I've found is that I get to do more work! The men on
the list are good at discussing the overall direction of The LDP while the
women seem to be better at processing new documents for their collection into
the LDP (and removing old/out of date documents). When it comes to processing
documents I work primarily with three women and Greg Ferguson--that's not to
say that there aren't any male volunteers! They just aren't the ones that I
do the most work with for the processing of documents.

Then I look at the work I do on the overall picture and it's mostly men (and
two women). Saqib Ali and David Horton have helped me a great deal with the
tool and document transformations. Greg, as I mentioned above, is responsible
for publishing documents. Stein Gjoen and I have had many interesting
conversations about library-friendly document storage and meta data. Most of
the licensing discussions are headed up by the men on our team.

As much as I would like to say that it's the men who need to do something to
get more women involved, I think it's really up to the women. Yes, there are
some male bozos out there, but there are some female ones too. Generally my
advice is this: when the bozos behave badly, let them know what is wrong
about their behaviour; then thank them for their help when they are being
good. If a group has an overwhelming number of bozos, find a new group. There
is not a single Linux group that I've quit because of men behaving badly.

So how do we get more women involved? Good question. I don't have a lot of
tech-oriented female friends. And those who are tech-oriented are too busy
working to consider switching operating systems. It's a long, slow process,
but I think as sophistication of Linux desktop applications grows and then
surpasses the applications available on Windows/Macs we will see more women
involved with Linux. Certainly I came to Unix/Linux fairly late. I was a
Machead growing up, then switched to Windows for university. I tried Linux in
2000, but the applications I needed weren't stable enough for me at the time.
I tried again in 2002 and have been here ever since.

Q: What could TLDP be doing better, according to you?

A: I know how much work is involved because I am a reviewer, but... I would
like to see the entire collection reviewed. I would like to have the
volunteer power to review every document on its one year anniversary. At that
time the document would be either kept in the collection "as is", removed
from the collection, or kept with certain conditions (for example my ACPI
HOWTO needs to contain information about the 2.6 series kernels). The review
date would be based on the document's anniversary, not based on the "last
updated" date.

That and having mugs for sale. The [http://www.hackerthreads.com/?page=shop/
browse&category_id=ae255697973840ae34ac3dcd028e55ce] t-shirts are nice, but
what I really want is a mug.
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7. HOWTO contribute to The LDP

The Linux Documentation Project (TLDP) is working on developing free, high
quality documentation for the GNU/Linux operating system. If you want to help
TLDP, consider joining <discuss-subscribe@en.tldp.org>.

Help us create this newsletter. We need volunteers who follow the community
(mailing lists, newsgroups, web channels) and report events related to free
software documentation. Write to us at <feedback@en.tldp.org>.

The LDP Weekly News is compiled and edited by Machtelt Garrels and Y Giridhar
Appaji Nag with help from several other people.