open source movement & india: where are our documents? amandeep singh sandhu peacelamp@gmail.com

Open Source Movement & India: Where are our Documents?

Amandeep Singh Sandhupeacelamp@gmail.com

Intention This talk focuses on the background and

current status of Open Source and presents some ways of working in the area …

It does not intend to explain Open Source Docs or Tools in detail

It intends to give a perspective on an emerging field - Without the consideration of jobs or compensation

It focuses on the FUN

A Brief History . . . Multics . . . UNIX: 1969 – Bell Labs – Ossana, Thompson, Ritchie BSD: 1979 - Berkely Software Distribution HP UX: 1981 – Hewlett Packard SunOS/Solaris: 1984 – Sun Microsystems NetWare: 1983 – Novell, easy version later NetWare 3.11 Apple Mac: 1984 – Apple Computers Windows: 1985 - Microsoft Linux: 1991 – Linus Torvaldus later merges Linux with GNU

These surely are a lot, and there are another 300+ operating systems in the world.

A soap is a Soap is a Soap

Mix lye and water with fats or oil. 

Fatty acid (oil) + Base (lye) = A Salt (soap)

What is Open Source It is a way of working where the users of a

system know how the system works It is not necessarily free: money wise The freedom is in the usage Users are free to modify and put back the

changes into the source code It has its own set of trademark rules Users must add the open source rights to their

software, so others can use and modify

Is it Affecting India

A small poll: How many companies here are influenced/affected by Open Source?

Traditional Vs Open Source

Traditional Manuals: User/Admin Readme Help Systems

Quick Start Cards Deployment TroubleShooting …

Open Source Manuals: User/Admin Readme Help Systems

How To How To How To

Change Control in Open Source Engineers do not bother about docs Users bother about docs Docs solve most of the problems ‘How To’ docs are an Open Source invention Even ‘How To’ docs are not updated!

Are Open Source Docs different? The fact that these docs do not

follow a proprietor model So they are open to being

downloaded and modified by all and sundry

The challenge is to make docs open yet control what goes into it

Hence domain expertise!

Is this a New Idea? Not really,

Respect keeps the Open Source movement alive

Respect pushes them to create better quality

This respect comes from peers, and fellow hackers Open Source documentation means

writers will need to earn respect beyond the company tags, from the community

Support: Mantra of Free Software Here are two versions of software: one priced

and one free Take the priced one and you get extra features

and support Take the free one and you are left to your

devices What is support? The entity which makes a

difference?

Documentation is Support Docs are a value proposition (wish our

managers saw it as one) By delivering accurate docs we cut down

support costs By retaining the knowledge and supplying it

appropriately we cut down on support costs

An Example I had a problem with my dial up connection. A

support guy charged me and fixed it I still had a problem: I couldn’t open a browser Another support guy charged me and fixed it Fact: I found no docs on the Internet to solve

my problem. And this was with Windows. Imagine Linux ... Imagine all the other flavours.

Some Approaches Mailing Lists

MySQL RedHat VeriSign Open Source Application Foundation

Blogs ZDNet MSN! Site Point

601 Yahoo groups Other groups (Apache, Snort)

Tools for Open Source Docs Editing:

Emacs VI JEdit, Kate KWrite OpenOffice.org for smaller doc projects

Formats: XML LaTeX

Tools for Open Source Docs - II Output:

PDF PostScript HTML

Vector graphics: XFig Sodipodi OpenOffice.org Draw

Graphics: GIMP

Versioning, archives and distributed work: CVS, Subversion

Concepts Copyleft: Method requiring all modified and extended versions

of a software program to be free. The same applies to documentation.

GPL: GNU General Public License intends to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software. This General Public License applies to most of the Free Software Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it.

Free Software: Free software is a matter of freedom, not cost. It is a matter of liberty, not price. The word `free' in free software has a similar meaning as in free speech, free people and free country and should not be confused with its other eaning associated with zero-cost. Think of free software as software which is free of encumbrances. Think of it as swatantra software.

Challenges

Motivation Why be interested? It provides a blend of writing and

technical path Might be satisfying

Lack of community of writers Lack of forums Lack of acknowledgement from

management

Some Links Doc Efforts

Doc Book: http://www.docbook.org/ Writers: http://www.tldp.org/

Free Software: http://www.gnu.org/ Open Source: http://www.opensource.org/ The Cathedral and the Bazaar:

Eric S Raymond Feb ’01 ISBN: 0-596-00108-8 http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/

Summary Time to move:

From company to individual branding From listening to what is to be done to

doing it From being a technical communicator to

being a technical communicator with domain expertise

From riding the bus to driving the bus

Thanks!