From: eLinux.org

OLS 2007 Embedded Linux Wiki BOF

Contents

Description

Date: June 27, 7-8 pm, King room

Leader: Michael Opdenacker

The new Embedded Linux Wiki (elinux.org) aspires to become the leading
resource of information about Embedded Linux. The project has been
seeded with the large quantity of technical material currently
maintained on the CELF public wiki and current elinux.org wiki. The CE
Linux Forum (CELF) is a main sponsor, funding a fulltime editor for the
site. The wiki will also welcome and encourage contributions beyond
technical documentation, such as hacker, product and company profiles,
event coverage, interviews, book reviews…

This BOF reviewed the achievements of this project to date and provided
an overview of the ideas and plans which have not been implemented yet.
All participants were invited to discover the work to date and share
their expectations of what a useful online resource should provide.

During the BOF, Michael asked everyone in the audience to create an
account and “edit something, anything”. This is an editing contribution
from one of those audience members.

BOF report

Presentation slides:
http://elinux.org/images//8/83/Pdf.gif
Embedded Linux Wiki BOF
presentation
http://elinux.org/images/d/da/Info_circle.png,
Media:Ols2007-elinux-wiki-bof.odp
(OpenOffice.org format)

During the presentation, several questions we asked:

Q: Where are the IRC archives?
A (Tim Riker):
http://ibot.rikers.org/%23elinux/
(now listed on the IRC page)

Q: What about email addresses?
A: Registration doesn’t ask for any password.

Q: What’s the license for code excerpts?
A: The license of the original software. If the code doesn’t belong to
any project, the author is free to choose a license. If not specified,
we assume the license is the GNU GPL v2.

Q: Are links stable over time?
A (Tim Bird): Yes, if the page is old enough. After a new page is
created, you may expect us to rename it or merge it with another page if
appropriate.

Q: Could there be an RSS feed for pages?
A: Apparently not, for new pages. However, Wikipedia provides an RSS
link in the “Toolbox” box in each history page. We are using the same
engine (Wikimedia), but we have not enabled this feature, yet.

Q: What about Wiki promotion activities and prizes?
A (Tim Bird): They are not finalized yet. Stay tuned on the Wiki pages
for news.

Several suggestions were also made:

  • Page(s) in which user could share their live experience with systems
    that appear to run Linux. An example is the entertainment system
    used by Delta Air Lines. There could be one page per system, in
    which contributors could add the extra details they found.

  • Rob Landley: as a way to fight obsolete pages, old pages could carry
    a “not modified since…” notice. Of course, contents would not be
    removed.

  • Rob Landley: To attract and recognize contributors, some pages could
    be rewarded by a “Passed editorial approval” or “High quality
    article” notice.

  • Rob Landley: What about attracting people by trying to catch their
    attention every day (note: like in Wikipedia)? We could have weekly
    highlights to keep contributors active. Tim Bird: I rather see this
    wiki as a live Embedded-Linux book.

  • Have “Questions and Answers” pages on several topics, perhaps on
    each topic advertized on the front page. Rob Landley also suggested
    having an “Unanswered questions” section on these pages or on
    separate pages.

  • Have tool-specific documents, such as “Installing SNMP”.

  • Somebody (Lefty, IIRC) proposed to announce the new wiki on
    Slashdot, LWN.net, and LinuxDevices.com.

  • Somebody proposed holding meetings with contributors living in the
    SF Bay area.

  • Satoru Ueda told us that there could be more contributors in Japan,
    but they could only write in Japanese. He suggested having a section
    or version of the wiki in Japanese for these contributors. Rob
    Landley suggested having a “Japanese Maintainer” who would
    coordinate and review translations of these pages to English.

Additional questions, answers and suggestions

Even if you couldn’t participate to this event, do not hesitate to add
your own questions and suggestions below.

Multiple Languages

Just responding to the note about Japanese contributions above… is it
not possible to set up mediawiki so that we can have a “in other
languages” sidebar just like wikipedia does? I’m sure there will be some
language specific pages, but I think most content could just be
organized so there is a version of each page/topic for the various
languages.

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