On Wed, Jan 19, 2000 at 12:17:35PM -0700, Tim Rightnour wrote:
> 
> On 19-Jan-00 Andrew Crossley wrote:
> > Posted on this list due to Herb Peyerl's advice.
> > 
> > Hello NetBSD people,
> > 
> > Andrew Crossley from Perth, Western Australia here.
> 
> >>        Federico Lupi has produced a new user guide for NetBSD in Italian.
> >>
> >>                http://www.mclink.it/personal/MG2508/netbsd/netbsd.html
> >>
> >>        We would like to get this translated into English (and later
> >>        other languages).
> 
> I think this is an excellent project for people to be undertaking..  and I
> think NetBSD as an organization should be attempting to organize what people
> are doing.
> 
> #1 Federico Lupi has written an italian userguide.. which we need to translate.
> #2 Andrew, and others have recently volunteered to write better manuals.
> 
> What I really think we need here, is rather than producing n texts, that those
> of you working on this collaborate on this.
> 
> That being said..  if netbsd is willing to host a private majordomo list for
> this.. I'd be willing to administer said list, and attempt to coordinate a
> single project.
> 
> So I guess the first thing to ask is.. would people be willing to work together
> on such a project?  I realize Federico is italian, and that is his primary
> language, but I think that barrier could be overcome.
> 
> I think at this stage.. trying to hash out a project this large on a public
> list will only lead to disaster.. as the infamous kitchen-sink effect starts to
> set in.
> 
> As far as what my role in this would be.. I'd be offering to admin the list,
> coordinate who is doing what, play arbiter and make sure a common goal is set,
> and offer technical advice on NetBSD itself.
> 
> ---
> Tim Rightnour <root@garbled.net>
> NetBSD: Free multi-architecture OS http://www.netbsd.org/
> NetBSD Mailing lists on the web: http://mail-index.netbsd.org/
> 

My guide started as a collection of fragments that I wrote mostly
for myself but now I have written an article on NetBSD that will be
published in a future issue of the Italian magazine "Login" and I
decided to collect everything in a single document to give a some help
to the interested italian readers.  The idea behind my current work
is to help someone with a basic knowledge of Unix to install and
configure NetBSD on i386 and end with a working system.  The guide is
written in SGML/DocBook format (using the SGML mode of vi :-)  )

I am updating the guide frequently on my web pages and it is now
approximately 100 printed pages long.  There is still a lot of work
to do but I think that at this point it is beginning to be useful.

I would be happy if my work could be the starting point for a more
comprehensive effort to produce a newbie documentation suitable for
NetBSD.  A translation of the guide has started, with the help of
Tracy J. Di Marco White, but I don't know the current stage of the
work.

I don't believe very much in "definitive books": they are very rare
and from my experience, I believe that starting with a modest goal is
better:  once a framework for a simple handbook exists I am sure that
contributions, corrections and enhancements will come from all NetBSD
users.

I am willing to help and accept help from anybody but, whatever happens,
I will continue the work on my guide.

-- 
Federico Lupi

Home page: http://www.mclink.it/personal/MG2508/
NetBSD guide: http://www.mclink.it/personal/MG2508/netbsd/netbsd.html