ubuntu-manual team mailing list archive

[Alan Pope <alan@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

2010/1/13 Ilya Haykinson <haykinson@xxxxxxxxx>:
> Please let me know if you think we need any changes to the questions.
>

"Do you believe a manual like this should be included in Lucid Lynx by default?"

I have explained to Benjamin that I'm uncomfortable with the amount of
focus being placed on getting the manual onto CD/ISO. Especially given
it's so far unfinished, and not in main so ineligible to get on the
CD. Putting pressure on the project to put this unfinished manual on
the CD on the proviso that it may be ready on time raises a few
issues:-

* Pressure is placed on the ubuntu manual team ( a brand new team ) to
get something on a CD which will be around for years (it's LTS).
* Pressure is placed on the Ubuntu developers who manage the content
of the CD. If the Ubuntu Manual team have gathered a massive amount of
users who click "yes" but for some other reason it _cannot_ be put on
the CD then the Ubuntu developers could well be painted as the
bad/evil ones for not doing "what people want". The content of the CD
isn't decided just by a popularity contest, all packages that go on
the CD are very carefully considered.
* There is no way the Ubuntu Manual team can guarantee that the manual
package will be updated. It's all very well saying that the manual
will be updated in every release and will be maintained within one
release (bug fixes), but there is no way the team can guarantee that.
That's up to maintainers of the main section of the repository.
* In the event that the Ubuntu Manual team is unable to maintain the
package (are there any MOTUs in the manual team?) it will likely fall
to the Documentation Team to maintain the manual in the future. What
provision has been made for this? Will the Doc team be happy
maintaining two separate sets of documentation? (I suspect not)

I've heard counter arguments that Ubuntu is too regimented and has too
much process, and that the Manual should be able to somehow bypass
this. Note that the processes we do have, have resulted in multiple
on-time quality releases of Ubuntu that thousands of people work
towards. We have a process for getting content in the main section and
on the CD and that works. Lets not try to create exceptions to that
process for one unfinished product.

"If it was to be included by default, do you think it should be on the desktop?"

I think this question highlights a lack of knowledge of the "rules" of
the desktop in Ubuntu. It's a pointless question because we do not put
_any_ icons or links directly on the desktop in a default install. I
would recommend you remove it. If it were to be on the CD then it
would likely be placed in a shared folder
"/usr/share/doc/ubuntu-manual/" for example, and a link placed in some
other folder, but there wont be an icon on the desktop, end of story.

> Note that in the free version of the tool I can only ask 9 questions (plus
> one slot that is used for the intro text), and can't have conditional logic
> in the questions. I think that is not a serious limitation -- anything
> longer is unlikely to get answered anyways.
>

Don't let the tool dictate the questions. If you want to ask more
comprehensive questions then use another tool. Other survey systems
are available, there's no rush to get this done in the next 7 hours.

I'm keen for this project to succeed, but please be careful not to
focus too much on getting on the CD, and not to rush things.

Cheers,
Al.