[Tinyos-alliance] TInyOS Documentation Working Group charter

[Matt Welsh]

David,

Sure thing - happy to have you on board.

What I have in mind follows closely the model used by the LDP, which  
was fairly successful but predated Wikis. That is, the WG is  
responsible for facilitating publication of docs, but (critically)  
*anyone can write docs and contribute them* (not just WG members). In  
the Linux days this was done with the contributed HOWTO model, and it  
worked very well, although it did lead to a proliferation of somewhat  
overlapping documents. With a Wiki in place I hope folks will feel  
empowered to both create new documents and edit existing ones without  
much inhibition. Philosophy is always that quantity is more important  
than quality. Quality comes later in the form of edits, compilations,  
published materials. It is just like open source.

In terms of presentation I don't foresee a problem. This never came  
up in the Linux world and that was way bigger than TinyOS. Anyone can  
make a website. We wanted to be a repository. Presentation is largely  
decoupled anyway.

Matt



On Sep 6, 2007, at 1:22 PM, David E. Culler wrote:

> Matt,
>    This looks like a great plan.  I'll take it to the Alliance  
> group.  I'd also like to volunteer to be in the group, but not  
> chair it.  I believe that once this is in motion there will  
> actually be a lot of interest.  One of the aspects we like to have  
> established early is the membership criteria.  This is a great  
> example.  Is it that you have docs to bring to the party?  Interest  
> in content management?
>    What you are really proposing here is much more than a  
> documentation group, but  a "publication group".  Coupling the two  
> can work well.  It is a lot of work to generate documentation, but  
> it is nice to get to shape the public face of the organization.  If  
> instead you have in mind the narrower charter, than we probably  
> need to partition the "redisgned web site" so that this group has  
> control of a portion of it and other groups control other  
> portions.  What I'd prefer to avoid is a tug of war between folks  
> on the "look and feel".  What gets placed in the center, what gets  
> place in the side, etc.
> I'd like to see that we pick up tinyos.org as part of it.  I'll  
> talk to Bill and to Jason about the hostnames.
> D
>
> Matt Welsh wrote:
>> Hi Alliance folks,
>>
>> I am writing to propose a new WG on TinyOS Documentation - see  
>> proposed
>> charter and initial membership list below. If you approve we'll get
>> started on the work.
>>
>> Best,
>> Matt
>>
>>
>> The TinyOS Documenation Working Group will develop tools and   
>> infrastructure for development, dissemination, and maintenance of   
>> TinyOS-oriented documentation online. A major aspect of this  
>> effort  will involve a redesign of the tinyos.net website to  
>> better support  the growing TinyOS community's needs. In addition,  
>> we will work to  foster a community of documentation writers and  
>> maintainers using  online tools such as Wiki sites, mailing lists  
>> and forums, and an  appropriate policy for contributing  
>> documentation. We wish to  emphasize that the Documentation WG  
>> does not intend to write all documentation itself. While it will  
>> manage a small amount of core documentation in order to ensure it  
>> stays up to date, such as the basic
>> tutorials and installation instructions, its primary goal is to  
>> seed a community for greater contributions.
>>
>> Members:
>>
>> Matt Welsh, chair <mdw at eecs.harvard.edu>
>> Phil Levis <pal at cs.stanford.edu>
>> August Joki, <august at cs.ucla.edu>
>> Michael Schippling <schip at santafe.edu>
>> Steve McKown <rsmckown at yahoo.com>
>> Benjamin Madore <bcmadore at cs.pitt.edu>
>> Ákos Maróy <darkeye at tyrell.hu>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> Tinyos-alliance at millennium.berkeley.edu
>> https://www.millennium.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ 
>> tinyos-alliance
>>
>