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Documentation

Linux Documentation Project news: As usual, a large number of new and updated documents has been uploaded since the last news bulletin in LWN. A number of new documents are also in preparation.

It is a truism in the free software world that free documentation often gets less attention than the software itself. The LDP is one of several projects trying to change this situation.

Last month, the LDP held a summit at UNC-Chapel Hill, at the facilities of ibiblio.org, a longtime LDP supporter. This summit has resulted in several new initiatives that will help the LDP evolve.

One of these is a project to manage the document collection more proactively. The LDP is seeking volunteers to help with this effort. If you're not a hacker, there is still a place for you to give back to the GNU/Linux community! Contact David Merrill formore information.

Much work and thought has gone into a cataloging project; determining how best to make documents available and accessible. Some of this work has been completed already. For instance, readers can now access the documents via lists that are sorted in a number of ways, including: last update (short list), last update (all documents), title, type and category.

There has been some discussions over file formats for submissions to LDP. The following formats are currently supported:

SGML
LinuxDoc, DocBook v3.x, DocBook v4.x
XML
DocBook v4.1.2

Structured markup such as SGML or XML is necessary for intelligent processing, conversion, indexing, and cataloging. In order to help new and prospective authors, a comprehensive authors area has been set up. To help authors with the document structure and processing steps, a LDP Author Guide (formerly the HOWTO-HOWTO) has been written.

Since many documents have been written in formats other than SGML or XML (such as plain text or HTML), there exists a number of people who have indicated they would provide markup assistance.

If you would like to try your hand on taking up old, unmaintained documents rather than writing from scratch, there is a list of unmaintained documents you could examine to see if you find something of interest.

The LDP keeps an open project list of planned and completed tasks. Feedback and contributions are always welcome.