Re: Wiki-fying docs

[Yury Tarasievich <grog@xxxxxxx>]

David Rhodus wrote:

> >    patches back into the official document format.  But I don't think we
> >    can use Wiki as a basis for the documentation... it doesn't have a
> >    formal enough infrastructure to serve as a good basis.
>
>
> I've yet to see anything ever done with the fbsd documentation other
> than made into a webpage.  Though, I guess with some work a wiki could
> be wrote in php to store the data in SGML format.

I feel that common misunderstanding happens in this argument.

SGML was/is there, in the first place, for having codification of 
structure (of information). So are the derivatives (XML etc).

Wiki deals with another problem -- wide community input on dispersed 
subjects, with hardly any regard to structure at all.

Do we have dispersed subjects here? Rather no. Do we have a (wide) 
community whose desire is exactly writing of documentation? I think no 
again.

Obviously, one can contribute to docs even in plain-text.

I think what we really are looking at here is the steep learning curves 
of SGML technologies and of the product itself (dfbsd).

Then, there's the absence of *serious* technical writing community (in 
open-source community). Nobody wants to (and few can and those who can 
seemingly prefer not to) write about things.

I don't really know, perhaps there are complicated procedures of 
contributing, too?

FWIW.