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<article>
<articleinfo>
  <volumenum>2003</volumenum>
  <issuenum>10</issuenum>
  <publisher><publishername>The Linux Documentation Project</publishername></publisher>
  <pubdate>2003-07-01</pubdate>
  <title>TLDP Weekly News</title>
</articleinfo>
 
<sect1>
<title>New documents</title>
<sect2>
  <title>Fresh@LDP</title>

<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para><ulink url="http://es.tldp.org/Tutoriales/doc-curso-cep-arroyo/doc-curso-cep-arroyo/">GNU Linux para usarios</ulink>, a document introducing GNU Linux and the spirit of free software, in Spanish by Juan Rafael Fernández García.  He brings this subject from the users' point of view, in this case, a group of school teachers.  It is primarily a practical guide to help teachers in their everyday life as Linux users.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Daniel Nofftz's <ulink url="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Athlon-Powersaving-HOWTO/">Athlon Powersaving HOWTO</ulink> which explains how to enable the power-saving functionality of the Athlon/Duron/AthlonXP processor on some motherboards/chip-sets has been release.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>

</sect2>

<sect2>
<title>Proposed new documents</title>

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>Zbigniew Lisiecki proposed his <ulink url="http://lists.tldp.org/index.cgi?5:mss:5188:200306:onaogjppndlafahmlcfl">RPC HOWTO</ulink>, which is indeed a specific topic on which we don't have clear documents. Even the NFS HOWTO does not explain very clearly how RPC and the portmapper work.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</sect2>

<sect2>
<title>Submitted for review</title>

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>Simon Anderson is in the process of reviewing a document which he presents as <ulink url="http://oob.freeshell.org/nzwireless/LWAP-HOWTO.html">the Linux Wireless Access Point HOWTO</ulink> and requests your comments.  It needs to be compared to the <ulink url="http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Wireless-HOWTO.html">Wireless HOWTO</ulink> and the <ulink url="http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/mini/Wireless-Link-sys-WPC11/index.html">Wireless Linksys WPC11 Mini-HOWTO</ulink>.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>We always like to see more women joining us, so make Emma Jane Hogbin feel at home.  She submitted an <ulink url="http://lists.tldp.org/index.cgi?5:mss:5164:200306:ocmehohgpokhnfnkgfpf">ACPI HOWTO</ulink> - ACPI being the next generation power management tool.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Saqib Ali converted his <ulink url="http://www.xml-dev.com:8080/cocoon/mount/docbook/Apache-WebDAV-LDAP-HOWTO.xml">Apache-WebDAV-LDAP-HOWTO</ulink> from SGML to XML.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

</sect2>

</sect1>

<sect1>  
<title>Updates</title>
<sect2>
<title>HOWTOs</title>
<para>HOWTOs updated in the past two weeks are:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>Miroslav Skoric updated his <ulink url="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/mini/FBB.html">FBB Packet-radio BBS mini-HOWTO</ulink> to v1.19.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>And we received v2.2.6 of the <ulink url="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/DocBook-OpenJade-SGML-XML-HOWTO/">DocBook-OpenJade-SGML-XML-HOWTO</ulink>, by Saqib Ali.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><ulink url="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Apache-WebDAV-LDAP-HOWTO/">Apache based WebDAV Server with LDAP and SSL</ulink> by Saqib Ali updated to v4.0</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><ulink url="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/mini/Battery-Powered/">Battery Powered Linux Mini-HOWTO</ulink> has been updated to v2.3 by David Lechnyr</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>The <ulink url="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/mini/Debian-Jigdo/">Debian Jigdo mini-HOWTO</ulink> by Peter Jay Salzman has been updated to v0.127</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Ian Ward's <ulink url="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/mini/Debian-and-Windows-Shared-Printing/">Debian and Windows Shared Printing mini-HOWTO</ulink> is now at v1.1</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>David A. Ranch updated his <ulink url="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/IP-Masquerade-HOWTO/">Linux IP Masquerade HOWTO</ulink> to v2.00.062203</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Al Dev (Alavoor Vasudevan) updated the <ulink url="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Kernel-HOWTO/">Linux Kernel HOWTO</ulink> to v6.1</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Miroslav "Misko" Skoric's <ulink url="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/mini/LILO.html">LILO mini-HOWTO</ulink> is now at v3.11.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>The <ulink url="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Modem-HOWTO.html">Modem-HOWTO</ulink> by David S. Lawyer is now at v0.28</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Svetoslav Slavtchev's <ulink url="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/XFree-Local-multi-user-HOWTO/">XFree Local Multi-User HOWTO</ulink> is at v1.0.3</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Mendel Leo Cooper sent in v1.9 of the <ulink url="http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/">Advanced Bash scripting Guide</ulink>.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Miroslav "Misko" Skoric updated the <ulink url="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/mini/FBB.html">FBB Packet-radio BBS mini-HOWTO</ulink> to v1.20.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

</sect2>
  
</sect1>

<sect1>
<title>Happenings in the LDP world</title>
 
<sect2>
<title>We need volunteers!</title>
<para>That's about the conclusion of last week's 
<ulink url="http://lists.tldp.org/index.cgi?1:mss:4627:200306:chccignifbnihoieigoj">major thread</ulink> 
on the discuss mailing list.  In an ever-changing environment, our documents 
become outdated tremendously fast: a one year old HOWTO is like pre-historic 
charcoal writing on stone.  Apart from people with a technical background, we 
also need user reviews to check on a document's usability.  Not only will user 
comments improve on readability; if more people read a HOWTO and comment on it, 
it would be easier to make out which are just hype and which are useful for the 
general public, as <ulink url="http://lists.tldp.org/index.cgi?1:mss:4616:200306:chccignifbnihoieigoj">David Lawyer pointed out</ulink> 
in the discussion.</para>

<para>While on the subject, several means of getting more volunteers were 
discussed.  It was generally agreed that neither mailing the LUGS about every 
review needed, nor advertising this in Slashdot would improve greatly on the 
current situation.  Indeed, one can hardly be forced to be a volunteer.</para>

<para>So let's just apply to your goodwill: make your skills known to us - even 
if your only skill is that you speak English, and 
<ulink url="http://tldp.org/mailinfo.html#maillists">join the LDP</ulink>!  In 
my (Tille's) point of view, even if you can only do a little bit, you owe it to 
the community, for being able to use such a good system. Joining the discuss 
mailing list <email>discuss-subscribe@en.tldp.org.NOSPAM</email> would be a good start.  We look forward to hearing from you soon!
</para>
<note><title>Officially working for TLDP</title>
<para>Several governments, among which the European, can now subsidize your work
for TLDP.  Check with your local representative.</para>
</note>
<para>As a side-effect, copyright laws came up in this lengthy discussion.  Of course there's the law: in almost any country all writing is copyright, on any medium, and you need the author's permission to do anything with it.  But since most authors are rather flattered to be quoted, remember that getting approval can be arranged in a convivial style.</para>
</sect2>

<sect2>
<title>Lampadas and GFDD</title>
<para>
One of the topics that came up during the discussion about the progress of Lampadas was about the <ulink url="http://www.gfdd.org">Gnutemberg Free Documentation Database</ulink>. Gaetano Paolone, one of the main developers of GFDD, <ulink url="http://lists.tldp.org/index.cgi?1:mss:4637:200306:dgkofndnnlmehfnbbfnd">suggested</ulink> that The LDP use GFDD engine. GFDD is written in PHP and uses PostgreSQL as dbms. It is licensed under the GNU GPL. The developers are working on an off-line import feature and changes on documents URI.
</para>
</sect2>


<sect2>
<title>Out of date HOWTOs</title>
<para>
Peter Jay Salzman got hebrew working on his system, and in the process <ulink url="http://lists.tldp.org/index.cgi?1:mss:4633:200306:ooabcklckocfahafbebo">found</ulink> that there are some howto's which are so out of date that they've become completely useless and even worse, misleading at times. He tried reaching the maintainer of the hebrew howto and wanted to find out if there were any provisions for "hijacking" someone else's howto.
</para>
</sect2>

</sect1>

<sect1>
<title>LDP History: the sequel</title>

<para>This is the continuation of the story started in <ulink url="http://tldp.org/ldpwn/20030617.html">TLDP WN 9</ulink>, where we started digging into the past and got stuck in 1996.</para>

<para>After extended research in the dungeon server rooms of Google, we can state with almost-certainty that the mysterious Erik does have a last name after all.  Most likely, we are dealing here with the Erik Troan, who supported virtually half of the Linux-using world in the 1993-1996 period and later on became the Senior Director of Engineering at RedHat.</para>
<para>Further research revealed that somewhere in 1996, Greg Hankins became supervisor of the LDP project.  He was the original author of the <ulink url="http://www.ibiblio.org/mdw/HOWTO/Serial-HOWTO.html">Serial HOWTO</ulink>, which he started in 1993 and maintained until 1997; he was also one of the main contributors to the SGML-tools development project.</para>
<para>By 1998, Guylhem Aznar was appointed coordinator of the LDP.  <ulink url="http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/docs/ldpResearch/ldp/wayback%20machine/LDP%20Team12-12-98.htm">The exact configuration of the core team</ulink> in those days has been preserved.  By then, it was composed of a <emphasis>hub</emphasis> consisting of one main coordinator, and individual FAQ, Guide and HOWTO coordinators, Greg Ferguson, Joshua Drake and Tim Bynum respectively.  Furthermore, most translation efforts started in 1994 are now running more or less at full speed. The German translation effort was among the first.  But you know (and refer to the Italians joining us recently), it can take a while before people find each other ;-)</para>
<para>It appears that this team registered the linuxdoc.org domain to which they moved the entire Linux documentation collection, which was of course promptly mirrored, and the relationship with the UNC was maintained.  As far as we could find out, they also started the discuss and other mailing lists - until then, discussion primarily happened in the Usenet newsgroups</para>
<para>What happened in the LDP during the years just before the new millennium?  Find out in July!</para>
</sect1>

<sect1 id="feedback">
<title>Feedback and Contributions</title>
                                                                                
<para>Please help us create this weekly newsletter. Seen a site putting
in a story with a link to the LDP? Completed the translation of any
HOWTO? Know of any articles about the LDP published in newspapers or
magazines? You can update us by sending in links and information at
<email>feedback@en.tldp.org</email>.</para>
                                                                                
<para>LDP Weekly News is edited by
Machtelt Garrels, Torsten Schlabach and Y Giridhar Appaji Nag
with help from several other people.</para>
</sect1>
                                                                                
</article>
