Re: [gentoo-dev] Is Gentoo dying?

[Joshua Saddler <nightmorph@gentoo.org>]

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On Sun, 4 Apr 2010 10:22:06 +0200
"Tobias Scherbaum" <dertobi123@gentoo.org> wrote:

> 5 years ago [...] constantly added [...]

You need to clarify your metric. How are you defining constant? How often does a new document need to appear?

What mostly happens is steady refinement and expansion of our existing docs, occasionally splitting off long portions into their own document, or merging a few back together where appropriate.

Stuff that's written fully from scratch is much rarer than you think, and it's been that way for a long time. I'm not saying that's a bad thing; that's just how it is.

Two noteworthy exceptions: 2005 and 2006. Those were years when we had all the English speaking GDP members writing. I came on board in 2005 and immediately helped crank out docs and updates, and worked with folks to get new stuff into the tree. 2005 was a good year both for the GDP and for external contributors to help write stuff and add patches, which is why we saw much more diversity in our new docs.

Since then, the list of active English writers in the GDP has declined to one and it's been that way for a few years now, so that partly explains the slowdown in docs. Another is that we just aren't getting as many new submissions since the days when (apparently) we had more willing developers to pitch in with the docs.

Many of the 2005/2006 guides have had their primary authors/contributors disappear, leaving us without an easy way to keep them up-to-date. The GDP can't maintain a doc if we don't have someone, internal or external, who can devote time to keeping docs up-to-date. Lots of those 2005/2006 additions need serious overhaul, or I'll have to mark 'em deprecated/draft or even remove them entirely.

Some of the guides written years ago have been removed from the tree. Part of maintaining documents is not just writing new ones, but treecleaning, if you will, our existing collection. It's not as attention-getting as a totally new guide. I can't promise attention-getting news releases for every doc or website change I make.

* * *

Here, I'll take 2 hours to go through our complete CVS history for our docs in /doc/en/ and create a list of what was added or removed in the last 5 years.

This list doesn't *begin* to include total rewrites or near-total rewrites (such as the printing, gnome, X11 guides) or whether the rewrites were made in just one day or over time as packages and methods have evolved. It doesn't cover the handbooks, nor the handbooks I wrote entirely from scratch in 2006 to cover the new GLI installers (and their subsequent removal after 2008's releases).

It also does not include documents that have since been marked "draft" or "deprecated" or some other maintainance status besides "active." I expect some of the docs on this list to still be in "draft" or to have moved to it or "deprecated," so whether they really count is up to you to decide. If you want to average docs on a monthly or yearly basis . . . you can tweak the numbers all you want.

Note, also, that just because you don't see a doc on it in the last 5 years doesn't mean we don't already have a wealth of published info on a subject in our existing documentation. Something that was added in, say, 2002 or 2004 is prolly very complete, and covers lots of stuff you'd normally find in separate articles elsewhere, for example on wikis. I'm not putting much here besides the files added/removed.

This is just stuff that's initially added to or removed from CVS.

*2010*

Nothing totally new added nor anything completely removed. Hey, the year is young. Lots of rewrites though.


*2009*

Same. Mostly extensive rewrites, most notably the handbooks to take into account the autobuilds.

New: bind-guide.xml
New: lxde-howto.xml
New: openbox.xml
Removed: ldapdns-guide.xml (added 2006)
Removed: gentoo-sparc-quickinstall.xml (added 2004)

*2008*

New: multipath.xml
New: nagios-guide.xml (draft)
New: openrc-migration.xml
Removed: apache-developer.xml (added 2005)
Removed: apache-troubleshooting.xml (added 2005)
Removed: apache-upgrading.xml (added 2005)
Removed: kde-config.xml (added 2004)
Removed: kde-split-ebuilds (added 2005)

*2007*

New: gcc-optimization.xml
New: pda-guide.xml (draft)
New: vpnc-howto.xml
New: xen-guide.xml
New: xfce-config.xml
Removed: colinux-howto.xml (added 2004)
Removed: mysql-upgrade-slotted (added 2006, but mysql team reverted SLOTting)
Removed: nx-guide.xml (added 2004)
Removed: openmosix-howto.xml (added 2003)

*2006*

New: change-chost.xml
New: conky-howto.xml
New: cross-compiling-distcc.xml
New: gentoo-alpha-faq.xml
New: gentoo-x86+raid+lvm2-quickinstall.xml
New: info-guide.xml
New: jffnms.xml
New: kernel-config.xml
New: ldapdns-guide.xml (removed 2009)
New: liveusb.xml
New: man-guide.xml
New: portage-utils.xml
New: postgres-howto.xml
New: vdr-guide.xml
New: zsh.xml
Removed: java-old.xml (added 2006)
Removed: vserver-howto.xml (added 2005)

*2005*

New: apache-developer.xml (removed 2008)
New: apache-troubleshooting.xml (removed 2008)
New: apache-upgrading.xml (removed 2008)
New: bluetooth-guide.xml (deprecated; needs total rewrite)
New: bugzilla-howto.xml
New: fluxbox-config.xml
New: gcc-upgrading.xml (imported from toolchain /proj/ doc)
New: gentoo-amd64-faq.xml
New: gentoo-freebsd.xml (deprecated; needs total rewrite)
New: gentoo-mips-faq.xml
New: gpm.xml
New: grub-error-guide.xml
New: hpc-howto (imported from cluster /proj/ doc)
New: mailfilter-guide.xml
New: mysql-howto.xml
New: mysql-upgrading.xml
New: sudo-guide.xml
New: usb-guide.xml
New: utf-8.xml
New: vserver-howto.xml (removed 2006)
Removed: macos-guide.xml (added 2004)
Removed: gentoo-alpha-compaq-tools.xml (added 2003)
Removed: 2.6-koutput.xml (added 2004)
Removed: 2.6-koutput-user.xml (added 2004)
Removed: gentoo-security.xml (added 2002)
Removed: modular-x-howto.xml (added 2005)

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