[17:04] <bkerensa> godbyk: good morning
[17:05] <godbyk> bkerensa: Hey, Ben.
[17:05] <godbyk> bkerensa: Hopefully my arguments didn't seem to pushy.
[17:05] <bkerensa> godbyk: I just noticed serverguide is lacking a debian path
[17:05] <bkerensa> godbyk: nah its fine if lyz approves then I respect that
[17:06] <godbyk> bkerensa: What needs to be done to fix that?
[17:06] <godbyk> I have to confess I haven't been paying much attention to the serverguide side of things.
[17:06] <godbyk> (I've been leaving that to Doug for the most part.)
[17:06] <bkerensa> godbyk: I will see peer reviews though and I need to generate a debian path for serverguide so it complies with packaging rules
[17:08] <godbyk> bkerensa: What's a 'debian path' and what do we need to do to create one?
[17:09] <bkerensa> so since Ubuntu is a Debian based distro
[17:09] <bkerensa> it has to follow Debian Policy on packages
[17:09] <bkerensa> which requires all packages to have a debian folder
[17:09] <bkerensa> that has contents that follow debian policy
[17:10] <godbyk> Oh! You're just referring to the debian folder that contains all the control files and whatnot for creating a .deb package?
[17:10] <bkerensa> http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide/dreq.en.html
[17:11] <godbyk> Has the server guide ever been packaged?
[17:13] <bkerensa> I see why
[17:13] <bkerensa> its not packaged
[17:14] <godbyk> I don't see a package for it in 13.04, at least. It must just be published on help.ubuntu.com.
[17:16] <godbyk> So I guess the question becomes: should we be packaging it?
[17:17] <bkerensa> no it seems its just merged in to help
[17:18] <godbyk> Okay.
[17:19] <pleia2> probably a good question for the server team, ubuntu desktop help is obviously a useful shippable thing, but server docs? I don't want server docs on my server :)
[17:19] <bkerensa> pleia2: you dont want man? :P
[17:20] <pleia2> talking about the server docs that this team creates specifically (as for man, it depends on the server, but usually not!)
[17:21] <godbyk> bkerensa: pleia2 is so good she doesn't need man. :)
[17:21] <pleia2> my servers are for working and serving things, I look up docs on other machines
[17:21] <godbyk> pleia2: same here.
[17:21] <pleia2> which is why I say it's a good discussion for doug and the server team
[17:22] <godbyk> Agreed. I'll email Doug and see if they're interested in packaging serverguide.
[17:22] <bkerensa> godbyk: there would be nothing to packaged since its just files that get pushed to the web
[17:22] <bkerensa> lacking a man there would be no need to package it
[17:23] <pleia2> some packages ship .html files that you can browse in /usr/share/doc
[17:23] <godbyk> bkerensa: Well, we could package the HTML files and/or the PDF. Just as we package the .page files for the desktop help.
[17:23] <pleia2> I figure this would be similar
[17:23] <godbyk> pleia2: Yeah, exactly.
[17:23] <bkerensa> anyways
[17:24] <bkerensa> pmatulis would be the person to ask
[17:24] <bkerensa> notably doug suggested he waited a long time for that MP... it was just ten days and I asked pmatulis to review it and he did so within two minutes of me asking
[17:24] <bkerensa> that kind of turnaround would not even happen for normal dev reviews
[17:24] <bkerensa> :)
[17:25] <bkerensa> I wake weeks for a review of normal ubuntu packages
[17:25] <bkerensa> and they have people doing reviews daily as a work requirement
[17:25] <godbyk> bkerensa: Nice. Okay, I'll chat with Doug and Peter and see if they're interested in having a .deb package for serverguide.
[17:26] <pleia2> thanks godbyk :)
[17:26] <godbyk> No problem.
[17:27] <godbyk> bkerensa: Did you decide on a deadline for docs?
[17:28] <bkerensa> godbyk: I do not get to decide :) doug wants to push till freeze although considering translation barely got done last cycle even with us finishing at freeze
[17:28] <bkerensa> I thought it might be good to give translations team as much time as possible
[17:28] <bkerensa> especially if lots of changes occur between cycles
[17:29] <godbyk> bkerensa: I agree with giving the translations team as much time as we can, but I think we're too far behind on this cycle with the English docs.
[17:29] <godbyk> I wouldn't want them to spend time translating bad documentation.
[17:29] <bkerensa> Especially since I imagine more non-english speakers are reading docs then english speakers
[17:29] <bkerensa> but thats just a guess
[17:29] <godbyk> So I vote for sticking with the original doc string freeze date.
[17:29] <godbyk> For 14.04 we can look at moving it up a bit earlier in the release cycle possibly.
[17:30] <godbyk> (We can't move it up too much because the UI still changes fairly late in the cycle.)
[17:30] <godbyk> My hope is that after we get synced with the upstream GNOME docs during this cycle that there will be a lot fewer merges to contend with for 14.04.
[17:31] <godbyk> Then we can focus on proofreading and fixing other bugs and adding more Unity-specific docs.
[17:31] <pleia2> godbyk: +1
[17:31] <bkerensa> godbyk: its important to be sure we are heavily reviewing the GNOME doc you are merging in too... although we do use some gnome apps they also are gearing their doc for a different desktop environment then ships in Ubuntu
[17:31] <bkerensa> also
[17:31] <bkerensa> the desktop team makes significant changes to quite a few packages that we carry from GNOME
[17:31] <bkerensa> so features may not be the same as they are upstream
[17:31] <godbyk> bkerensa: Yeah. I have to change some of their 'select blah from the blah activity' to 'click on the gear icon and select system settings' quite a bit.
[17:32] <bkerensa> Our freeze date is Thursday though
[17:32] <godbyk> bkerensa: Thankfully a lot of those changes were merged into the upstream GNOME docs so that work is already done.  I do catch a few that weren't fixed upstream, though.
[17:32] <bkerensa> and I will let translations know to begin at midnight UTC on Thursday
[17:33] <godbyk> bkerensa: Yeah. I've been trying to check for differences as I go along, but I won't have time to do all of it before the string freeze.
[17:33] <godbyk> bkerensa: Sounds good.
[17:34] <godbyk> I'm going to continue to merge in upstream GNOME docs.
[17:34] <bkerensa> k
[17:34] <godbyk> I've been trying to add notes to the spreadsheet when pages require extra review (e.g., if the upstream docs differ too much from our own).
[17:35] <godbyk> While Ubuntu/Unity modifies some GNOME apps a bit, the upstream GNOME docs are still considerably more accurate and up to date than the existing Ubuntu docs.
[17:35] <littlegirl> godby: What kind of help do you need as far as proofreading is concerned?
[17:35] <godbyk> So most of the merges are a net win.
[17:36] <godbyk> littlegirl: If you'd like, you can proofread the pages that I've already updated.
[17:36] <littlegirl> godbyk: Okay, where is a list of those?
[17:36] <godbyk> littlegirl: There are a few pages that I've flagged in the spreadsheet that will need more careful merging. So I'm ignoring those on this first pass. I'll revisit those after I've finished the rest of the easy merges.
[17:36] <godbyk> littlegirl: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AsSw0cKYcffNdFlFakF5M0VjR002UEVvakVPZGpydHc#gid=0
[17:37] <littlegirl> I'm not sure how to work that list. How do I find the pages it references?
[17:37] <godbyk> littlegirl: Anything that has my name as a reviewer (Kevin Godby) will likely have a comment stating if I merged upstream docs or not. Anything that I've made merges to, feel free to proofread.
[17:37] <godbyk> littlegirl: The pages refer to the files in the bzr repository. But they also correspond to the html pages.
[17:38] <littlegirl> godbyk: I've only ever worked on kubuntu docs. What's the path to the ubuntu docs for my command?
[17:38] <godbyk> littlegirl: Unfortunately, I don't have a live snapshot of the html pages at the moment. I'll see if I can create one soon.
[17:38]  * littlegirl prefers bzr to html. (:
[17:38] <godbyk> littlegirl: Otherwise, if you check out the bzr repository, those files are in ubuntu-help/C/.
[17:38] <godbyk> littlegirl: And you can view them rendered by running 'yelp blah.page'.
[17:38] <godbyk> littlegirl: bzr branch lp:ubuntu-docs/saucy
[17:39] <littlegirl> Thanks! I'll take a look. I don't use Ubuntu, but I can be useful for grammar, punctuation, clarity of instructions, etc. (:
[17:40] <littlegirl> godbyk: Do you guys use Mallae or DocBook?
[17:40] <godbyk> littlegirl: Thanks! I'll take all the help I can get! :-)
[17:40] <godbyk> littlegirl: We're using Mallard.
[17:40] <littlegirl> godbyk: Okay, I'll see what I can do. (:
[17:40] <godbyk> It's a bit simpler than docbook. It's still XML-based, though.
[17:41] <pleia2> btw, I added this section to our getting involved docs: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DocumentationTeam/SystemDocumentation/UbuntuDesktopGuide#Building_html_version_of_the_docs
[17:41] <pleia2> in case anyone does want to bulid current .html version
[17:41] <godbyk> littlegirl: After you've proofread a document, go ahead and add your name to one of the reviewer columns in the spreadsheet. If there were no errors, make a note in the comments field to that effect.
[17:41] <littlegirl> I saw your comments in the mailing list, which is what got me looking into this. Apparently I'm one of the 13 people you referenced who isn't approving merge proposals, and I didn't realize until now that I had such power. I've always been one of the people who made the proposals. (:
[17:41] <godbyk> Nice! Thanks, pleia2.
[17:42] <pleia2> littlegirl: hah, yeah, I think because you're a key kubuntu docs contributor :)
[17:42] <godbyk> littlegirl: Ha! No worries. There haven't been too many merge proposals to worry about.
[17:42] <littlegirl> godbyk: Okay, thans - will do. Do I need to be logged in somewhere to do that or can anybody edit that spreadsheet?
[17:42] <pleia2> anyone can edit
[17:42] <godbyk> littlegirl: Anyone can edit it.
[17:42] <godbyk> If you can't, let me know and I'll try to fix it.
[17:43] <littlegirl> pleia2: Was. I haven't done much this time around. It's all kind of confusing right now because they're changing it. I was nicely settled in with DocBook and bzr. (:
[17:43] <godbyk> littlegirl: Are they switching to Mallard?
[17:44] <littlegirl> godbyk: No, they're switching to the wiki, interestingly enough, in an effort to make the documentation more enticing for any user to edit (since a lot of people don't know DocBook or Mallard or BZR). Then they want to have a smaller set of docs still on the LP server that will go into the distribution itself, but I'm really not sure what's what on it yet, and have just kind of gone in and edited anything I see that needs fixing.
[17:44] <littlegirl>  (:
[17:45] <godbyk> littlegirl: Ah, okay. Interesting. You'll have to keep me posted on how that works out for you guys.
[17:46] <littlegirl> godbyk: I think it's Aaron Honeycutt and Valorie... don't know her last name, that are working on it.
[17:47] <godbyk> I'd like to find ways to make it easier for people to contribute to ubuntu-docs, too, but that'll have to wait until after 13.10, I think.
[17:47] <godbyk> It'd be nice if people could easily suggest improvements, point out errors, etc. without having to go through the hassle of filing a big bug report and all that.
[17:48] <godbyk> And many people who are interested in helping with documentation aren't so interested in learning obscure markup languages. :-)
[17:50] <littlegirl> godbyk: Well, you guys have it right in using Mallard, since that is much easier to learn than DocBook, and I think all you need is some very simple instructions for anyone to follow in order to get them up and running with doing direct edits. (:
[17:51] <godbyk> I agree that Mallard is easier than Docbook. Docbook has *so many tags* to learn.  :)
[17:53] <littlegirl> godbyk: Agreed, and I believe they recently updated to a new version which is quite different and makes it awfully hard to verify the tags, and I don't think Ubuntu or any of its derivatives upgraded to it (probably for that reason). (:
[17:53] <littlegirl> godbyk: Do you guys use LP blueprints to keep track of merges?
[17:54] <littlegirl> Or just the spreadsheet?
[17:54] <godbyk> littlegirl: At the moment, I'm just the spreadsheet.
[17:55] <godbyk> littlegirl: The Ubuntu docs were last updated for 12.10, so we're behind a bit. Our workflow is a bit haphazard this cycle while we rush around to get things up and running again.
[17:57] <littlegirl> godbyk: Not a problem. I just like to know what's where and what I need to edit or reference. (:
[17:58] <littlegirl> godbyk: I used to have to do http://paste.ubuntu.com/6102646/ every time I pushed a change to the LP server with bzr. Do I have to do anything like this with the Ubuntu documentation or is this sort of thing no longer necessary since I now have godly documentation powers? (:
[18:00] <godbyk> littlegirl: Ha! Well, you can still follow that procedure if you like. It's the more proper way to do things, I suppose.
[18:00] <godbyk> littlegirl: But if it's a simple change, you can just commit it directly yourself.
[18:00] <godbyk> littlegirl: I'd recommend running "ubuntu-help/C/check_validation.sh blah.page" before committing, though, to ensure you didn't introduce validation errors.
[18:01] <godbyk> (Something I've been guilty of!)
[18:01] <godbyk> I get emails whenever someone commits to the repository, so I skim over those to see what changes were made.
[18:02] <littlegirl> godbyk: Okay, sounds good, and I'll definitely do the validation. (:
[18:04] <godbyk> I have to run off for a meeting now. I'll be back in about three hours.
[18:04] <godbyk> littlegirl: If you run into any problems or have any questions, feel free to ask in this IRC channel or email the list at ubuntu-doc@lists.ubuntu.com.
[18:04] <godbyk> littlegirl: Thanks for your help!
[18:05] <littlegirl> godbyk: Okay, will do. Thanks for your help, too! (: