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From: orc@pell.chi.il.us (Orc)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: a monthly FreeBSD magazine (and other *BSD's too)
Date: 20 Dec 1995 17:03:43 -0800
Organization: By the Holy Claws of Klortho the Magnificent, this IS a fine morning!
Lines: 62
Message-ID: <4babpf$nne@pell.pell.chi.il.us>
References: <4ajc07$sb7@unix2.glink.net.hk> <DJsv8t.7po@hamartun.priv.no> <4b5pqd$asb@pell.pell.chi.il.us> <4b79ka$1t5@park.uvsc.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: pell.pell.chi.il.us
In article <4b79ka$1t5@park.uvsc.edu>,
Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> wrote:
>orc@pell.chi.il.us (Orc) wrote:
>] *Do* enjoy trying to kill off your operating system of choice.
>] I can see one reason why the books on installing and running FreeBSD
>] aren't popping off the bookshelves -- with k-RAD d00dz like yourself
>] proudly proclaiming that they won't read them, why waste the time
>] writing the goddamn book?
>
>They aren't "popping of the bookshelves" because the majority
>of us have full time work to do and don't have the luxury of
>blowing as much time as is required up front to put a decent
>book on the shelves in the first place: ~2600 hours.
Note that you're not the only people using FreeBSD. If the only
people using FreeBSD were the core developers, I would not be at all
surprised to see the excuse of "there's not enough time" mentioned
once, and then nothing but silence. But you're not, and instead the
excuse (not, fortunately, from the core team) is "we're too k-rad for
documentation." This way lies the slow lingering death of the Amiga
and Atari ST. I *know* the core team doesn't have time to write
documentation, so you certainly don't need to keep digging up that
dead horse. But there are non core-team developers out there who can
write and may be inclined to write, if they don't pay attention to
the din of the clueless whining that if FreeBSD was easy to use, then
*everybody* will use it.
>If you have no real time commitments, feel free to spend the 8
>hours a day for a year required to put something together.
If I could be assured that people would buy the thing, I'd be
tempted. But when the clueless grunt out that they don't need any
stinking documentation, rest assured that the prospect of spending
that much time to describe the system becomes a bit less appealing;
writing documentation is hard enough when it ends up being read,
and I've written my share of deathless prose which ended up as
unread fertilizer.
If the userbase for FreeBSD continues to grow, people who are
interested in writing manuals will volunteer. Do try not to drive
them away by saying that FreeBSD doesn't need documentation, or
that only the stupid need to know how the system works before they
install it.
>To make up for our inability to document differences from the
>standard distribution, most of the people hacking the code
>simply do not introduce differences perceptible to the user
>in terms of administrative or other interface, which means that
>the standard books apply.
Which standard book describes how to load soft fonts on a PC VGA
console? Which standard book describes how to make FreeBSD coexist
with other operating systems when you're installing it on standard
PC-partitioned disks?
____
david parsons \bi/ orc@pell.chi.il.us
\/