OldHowtosUse

We have to set a policy for the use of old HOWTOs in the wiki.

Example letter to the authors

We can reach the author

The author still want to maintain his HOWTO

Ask him if he still want to maintain his HOWTO (hoping he will :-). He can continue using the classical system (Docbook, Linuxdoc, submit list), but we have to ask him if he could do this on the wiki, wich is the prefered solution. This mean he will accept users inputs.

If he accepts, we have to look at the licence of the document. This licence have to be the default LDP licence (preferably) or any of the free licences listed in the licence comment page.

If the author wants to use an other licence, this must be debated on the Discuss list. No other licence should be allowed if not for very important work or very good reason. On this case, the document have to be sorted on a special list and tagged for reader and user information.

The author don't want to maintain his HOWTO

We have to ask him if he wants to accept an other maintainer. If yes, we will have to ask the same licence question as before.

If no volunteer is readily available to take the HOWTO, we have to use one of the LDP member as a temporary maintainer. If none is available, use the coordinator's name. It's very important to have a reachable maintainer.

If the author don't accept giving his HOWTO, we have to move it to a special list "Unmaintainable" and as soon as possible to the obsolete list. We can publish it, but on read only page, as if we couldn't reach the author. Even if the original licence allow changing the maintainer, we should not do this against the authors will.

We can't reach the author

Document with free licence

If any of the listed free licence is used, no problem, we keep it and make is writable in the wiki.

We may have to found a maintainer (if not already found) to keep the document updated, this can be done by setting in the document a tag asking for one and waiting. In the mean time, default to a wiki member or the coordinator. Do not let a document without any maintainer.

Other licence

For any other licence, we have to examine the HOWTO individually.

The default workflow is to write it in the wiki read only and add a comment page.

Content of the comment page:

examples:

• typos or orthograph mistakes: if the meaning is not obscure, probably

better not take care of it.

• errors or changes:

we have to rewrite the paragraph, using as little as possible of the original one.

• Do not copy the original paragraph, changing only some word (not allowed by the licence)

• write a new paragraph saying "In the paragraph XX, there is a change: the XX driver have to be loaded before and not after" (this is a comment, allowed).