Hi Gueven, On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 8:54 PM, Gueven Bay <gueven.bay@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > 2009/4/17 Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>: >> Hi Gueven, >> >> On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 3:11 AM, Gueven Bay <gueven.bay@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >>> Hello, >>> >>> I would like to contribute to the man-pages project but I have some questions. >>> >>> 1) If I use the "Advanced Search" of the bugzilla and choose under >>> Product "Documentation" >>> and und er Component "man-pages" then I get only three bugs - #10356 , >>> #12919 and >>> #12726 - . >> >> If you'd like to help (and that would be much appreciated!), then the >> following page gives many pointers: >> http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/contributing.html >> In particular, you might try grepping the man pages source for the string FIXME. > > Hi Michael, > > Thanky you for your answer. > > If I understand you correctly then your answer means that I do not have to look > into bugzilla to see which current problems the man-pages have, right!? Yes. > (But nevertheless i would like to have some direct answer for my > bugzilla problem, > please.) I'm not sure what you mean by "problem" -- if you are referring to the fact that there are very few man-pages bugs filed on bugzilla.kernel.org, then that is accurate: there are very few bugs filed via that mechanism. > Okay. > > But with your answer I can not see how my two other questions are solved. > Because the page you linked above - contributing.html - does not > answer my questions. Yes, sorry -- I was on the move when I wrote my reply, and just covered the first of your questions. > So I want to quote these in the hope that they will be solved (in > parentheses I try to > make the problems somewhat clearer if the questions were not understandable). > >>> 2) I would like to contribute man pages for drivers like the >>> (Free|Net|Open)BSD man pages have. >>> Here >>> http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/online/dir_section_4.html >>> are no driver man pages like for example these listed : >>> http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=aha&sektion=4&apropos=0&manpath=FreeBSD+7.1-RELEASE >>> (Adaptec SCSI host adapter driver) >>> http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=aue&sektion=4&apropos=0&manpath=FreeBSD+7.1-RELEASE >>> (ADMtek AN986 Pegasus USB Ethernet driver) >>> Do you not have such driver man pages because of missing contributers who write these >>> or >>> is there some "technical" reason that such man pages are or maybe cannot be written? > > (Maybe there are no driver man pages because this project will not in > any form include them in its > releases - for whatever reason - > maybe it is only because no one ever wrote a driver man page. But what > is the real reason? > If I write some will it go into the man pages project or should I > collect them in my own repo.) As Petr noted, there are some section 4 man pages for devices. It would be nice if there were more, but, as Petr also noted, there are other things that are probably more important. >>> 3) On which version of the kernel/glibc do you write the man pages? >>> The current stable version? Or >>> the development trunk (head) of the kernel and glibc? > > ( Do you use kernel 2.6.29 for writing the man pages or is the actual > man-pages project > "stuck" in an older version like 2.6.19 or so - for some technical > reason like "stability" or so - ? > What is the case with glibc? Do you check out the newest development > tree or use some distro specific > version? ) Take a look at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/maintaining.html Note the statement: "History matters. The man-pages project documents not just the current state of the Linux kernel and glibc APIs, but also how they have changed over time." The man pages attempt to be accurate for all versions of the kernel and glibc. So, if things have changed over time, the man page should note the kernel or glibc version where things changed. The pages are not perfect in this respect, but indeed historical details *are* described in many pages. Cheers, Michael -- Michael Kerrisk Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/ git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/docs/man-pages/man-pages.git man-pages online: http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/online_pages.html Found a bug? http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-man" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
