Working Draft – Please comment.
The Center for Open Source Software Documentation is a not-for profit volunteer organization whose goal is to provide a comprehensive collection of verified, understandable, localized documentation for software available under any one of the open source licenses.
Documentation may also be referred to as a manual for readability purposes.
It is anticipated that all documentation in the collection will be covered by one of the GPL or similar licenses
The main attributes of the documentation contained in this evolving library are:
- Verified — All documentation will be passed through a rigorous process of verification. Every installation step, file name, file location, command, etc. will be checked for accuracy.
- Understandable — Each section of all documentation will organized in parts with short parts written for experts and longer parts written for novices.
- Localized — Familiar in style and usage to readers whose native language is the language of the document.
Manuals will be in one of four stages. The stage a document is in will be prominently indicated.
- Unreviewed — documentation that has not proceeded through the approval process
- In process — documentation that has undergone some review and rewriting but is not considered ready for final approval
- Submitted — documentation that is being considered for final approval
- Approved — documentation that has passed the approval process.
The entire process taking a manual from unreviewed to approved status will be an open process encouraging community participation. The steps in the process are:
The manual may be added to the collection by its author or anyone else providing the rights of all parties involved are respected.
The In Process Stage
- A team of one or more editors will be formed to oversee the transition of the manual to approved status.
- The editors will, either by themselves or with the assistance of others, check all facts and correct any errors found in the document
- The editors will also adjust the style and usage to conform with the goals of the Center.
- Translators may, at the end of this stage, be employed to translate the manual to other languages.
The Submitted Stage:
- The editors will post a notice that the manual is ready for approval.
- During the review period comments and suggestions for changes will be solicited.
- At the end of the review period the editors will decide whether any of the suggestions are worthy of incorporation into the documentation. If this is the case, then the documentation will return to the “In Process” stage.
Approval
- When the editors decide that there have been no significant suggestions the document will be considered approved.
- The approved documentation will be posted in the approved collection.
- The maintainers of the software will be encouraged to notify the editors of changes to the software so that the documentation can be kept up-to-date.
