ubuntu-manual team mailing list archive

[Alex Lourie <djay.il@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi All

Being a silent listener so far, I'd like to add some comments on the
subject. I agree with Phil and Mathew - the Ubuntu Manual project as it is
needs more clarity and well defined purposes. But I took an additional step,
and looked over some content and translations.

I do not want to diminish the importance of any of these projects. I
understand their nature, and I do believe they both have a legitemate
causes. I just expressing my own opinion, and leave it to all the parties to
think about it, ignore or do anything they like with it. So,
here it comes:

1. Some phrasing may be considered not quite correct. Example from prologue:
"Using the Debian operating system as a code base, Shuttleworth built Ubuntu"
- may be interpreted by a reader as if Mark has built the OS by himself
(remember, Manual readers know nothing about how Operating Systems are
created).

2. Some phrasing in the text would be highly subjective. Who is in the
position to decide? Example from the prologue:
"Ubuntu quickly rose to be the most popular Linux distribution, thanks to
the financial backing from Mark personally --- allowing free CDs to be
pressed and shipped worldwide at no cost to the end user." - highly
subjective. I could bring to the table a lot of reasons why did Ubuntu rise
to the success it has, and free shipping would not be in the first five.

3. I've taken a look at Russian translations. While only few strings were
translated, there are already quite obvious mistakes in some, and not high
quality in others. It requires a good editor to make them great.


That said, I'd like to see more of the development in this project to make
my mind about it.

Alex.