[Mailman-Developers] Volunteering

[Barry A. Warsaw]

>>>>> "KK" == Ken Kyler <ken@kyler.com> writes:

    KK> We have just recently started using MailMan
    KK> (http://www.eLists.org).  We switched from MajorDomo.  It is a
    KK> significant improvement.  Although I am a programmer, I'm not
    KK> very familiar with Python - however I am a fairly good tech
    KK> writer (http://www.kyler.com).  Which leads me to...

    KK> How does one get involved? It appears you could use some help
    KK> with the documentation.

Ken,

Glad to hear that you'd like to help out with Mailman documentation.
You should definitely get in touch with Chris Kolar (who is on this
list).  He posted the following URL with his fine start at
documentation:

    http://www.aurora.edu/~ckolar/mailman

David Thiessen also edited a version of the Mailman Users Manual but I 
can't dig up the reference right now.

While I really appreciate and applaud both efforts, we need to talk
about a couple of things.  First, for us to include any documentation
with the Mailman distro, it'll have to be GPL'd and FSF-assigned.  I
can email the forms for anybody who needs them, but you need to know
this in advance in case you can't or won't be able to do this.

Second, there's the matter of the format for the documentation.
Because we're GNU, we need the docs in a "free" format.  Unfortunately
PDF isn't "free" as far as the FSF is concerned.  Most ideal would be
texinfo, which I believe is the GNU preferred documentation format.
I've hacked enough texinfo to know that that's not the most convenient 
format to write.  I think that PostScript and HTML are both okay, so
I'm not sure if it's enough that a non-free source can be translated
into a free format.

I would encourage those who are working on documentation to get
together and coordinate efforts.  Post URLs for drafts on this mailing 
list.  If you think you need me to create a little focused sig list to 
help you out, let me know.

And thanks!
-Barry