Libre Graphics Global Documentation Project

Hong Phuc Dang
LGM 2011, Montreal

1. We need More Free Documentation2. The Libre Graphics Global Documentation Project3. How we want to Support the Community4. Ideas to Create Documentation Freely and Efficiently

Working with Libre Graphics software, organizing events and conducting trainings during the last year, I came to realize ...

We need More Free Documentation

We need More Free Documentation

We need More Free Documentation

Free as in Freedom

Current Situation Many people want to learn about free software

Some would like to buy materials, but there are not always available locally

A lot of freely licensed materials exist already, e.g.

Help content in forums

Tutorials at project sites and videos on the web

Some challenging issues may prevent people in the community to create and publish more materials and to publish them under free licenses. Questions involved circle around income, publishing contracts, copyright, available time, recognition and personal interests.

Examples of existing documentation and educational projects in the FOSS, Free Content and Libre Graphics community

Wikibooks - the wiki for books. Difficult to know which ones are good. It seems like the wikibooks concept has not worked out entirely for (quality) books (yet).

Khan Academy - a site of a dedicated videomaker with over 2000 Creative Commons licensed videos, but in flash (closed source) and not downloadable. Videos can only be used non-commercially.

'Wireless Networking in the Developing World' is a free book about building low-cost wireless network infrastructure. It was first put together during a one week book sprint of contributors from all over the world in London. It is regularly updated. The publication is supported by Canada's International Development Research Centre.

wndw.net

Flossmanuals.net offers a number of manuals, e.g. the Vietnamese community just translated the OLPC Sugar manual. The wiki powered site focuses on the creation of quality documentation about how to use free software. The documentation is licensed under the GPL.

Online forums exist on many project sites. Gimp, Inkscape, Scribus, Laidout - most of the Libre Graphics projects have tutorials available in pdf and videos on their website or on video sites.

Actually, there are many books available already, but unfortunately most of them are not under a free license.

inkscape.org/books/ - wiki.scribus.net/canvas/Books- gimp.org/books/

Inspite of constraints (I assume from publishing houses) authors already began to share chapters online and make additional sources available.

There's also a download file there containing all of the source code discussed in the book, some sample images in the GIMP's native format (XCF), plus a few other useful scripts which were used to generate some of the figures in the book.

gimpbook.com

The famous Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho is even more successful since his books are online as free downloads. Paulo Coelho is a strong advocate of spreading his books through peer-to-peer file sharing networks. A fan posted a Russian translation of one of his novels online. Sales of his book jumped from 3,000 to one million in three years, with no additional promotion or publicity from his publishers.

(compare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Coelho)

ErgoThere is already some excellent documentation available, but there could be more.

Some of the best resources books are mostly unfree and therefore limit the use, sharing and possibility to remix.

Videos in the proprietary flash format are not downloadable.

ErgoThere is already some excellent documentation available, but there could be more.

Some of the best resources books are mostly unfree and therefore limit the use, sharing and possibility to remix.

Videos in the proprietary flash format are not downloadable.

Let's collect more examples of good freely licensed materials. How did they do it?

Questions remaining

What free tools and technologies exist to make different media available freely? Documentation writers and videomakers are dispersed all over the world. How to get them together to achieve the best possible outcome for example in a book sprint? How to work on materials when contributors have only a limited amount of time? What can we learn from free software programmers?How can we set up an efficient documentation infrastructure and collaborate to create more excellent resources? What additional benefits can documentation writers and users have?How can the process of documentation be funded?How can authors generate an income?

The Libre Graphics Global Documentation Project

is a new initiative in its first phases open to all interested parties

aims to support documentation contributors

brings together people with expertise in Libre Graphics applications

supports contributors to work together to create free documentation materials

facilitates the process of documentation and offers support by functioning as a network hub for documentation authors, programmers, designers and translators.

The Libre Graphics Global Documentation Project

Create

Create materials that areEasy to understand

Easy to distribute

Easy to change

Easy to translate

Goals of the Libre Graphics Global Documentation Project

Create materials that areEasy to understand

Easy to distribute

Easy to change

Easy to translate

Create resources for:Designers and users (including different learner types - e.g. visual, vocal, oral, haptic)

Goals of the Libre Graphics Global Documentation Project

Create materials that areEasy to understand

Easy to distribute

Easy to change

Easy to translate

Create resources for:Designers and users (including different learner types - e.g. visual, vocal, oral, haptic)

Goals of the Libre Graphics Global Documentation Project

Focus on:Resources to create Libre Graphics works with free/open source software

Authorslearning more, potential income, fame, fun of creation

Userslearning about how to be creative with a FOSS application

having the freedom of using the documentation the way they like, e.g. making notes, searching it, copying it, changing it and even becoming a contributor remixing it

Benefits for

How we want to Support the Community

Setting up a community blog dedicated to documentation

Using social networks to connect with people

Organizing live book sprints

Organizing translation sprints in Asia and elsewhere

Co-operating with projects on their existing channels

Creating videos for howtos

Supporting the Community

Publishing work we have done on a broad range of channels

Acquiring funding for document creation events, sprints and publication

Publishing books online with an official ISBN

Creating audio books and Android book apps

Printing books by using low cost printing advantage in Asia

Please add your idea here

Supporting the Community

Tools, Guidelines, Working Models

Tools, Guidelines, Working Models (seven fun ideas to create resources freely and efficiently)

a) Use wikis and CMS (The flossmanuals talk is just after this talk)

b) Use shared folders (It is relatively easy to set up a shared folder on a Linux server or we can use tools like Dropbox.

c) Explore new ways to collaborate, e.g. Git for designers (I am looking forward to the talk of OSP)

d) Save all source data in the original format and make it available as well (e.g. Gimp .xcf as well as .jpg if you have a sample in your documentation)

Tools, Guidelines, Working Models

e) License your work as freely as possible. Maybe some people want to translate it, print it out and sell it. You could be supporting people in emerging countries to make a living!

f) Learn from the programmers and set up documentation sprints, just like code sprints, that we see at events like the Ubuntu developer summit twice a year. We would like to organize a Libre Graphics book sprint just after FOSSASIA and would be happy to welcome you.

g) Use exclusively free tools to create the documentation

Tools, Guidelines, Working Models

Hong Phuc Danghp@fossasia.org fossasia.org // opendesign.asia

Please get in touch with me, if you are interested to work together on documentation or if you have an idea for cooperation. I would be very happy to talk to projects and discuss how I could help.

I hope to see you in Vietnam at FOSSASIA 2011 from Nov. 11-13 or at any other time. We always have a free table for contributors in our company office in the Mekong delta.

LGM 2011, Montreal
HP.Dang, M.Behling

Libre Graphics Global Documentation Project

Hong Phuc Danghp@fossasia.org

FOSSASIA Nov. 11-13, Vietnamfossasia.org

Thank you.