[maemo-developers] Documenting maemo pearls (was Re: N800 & Video playback)

[From: quim.gil at nokia.com]

Don't kill the messenger! 

>> But yeah, always happy to answer direct questions.
>
>Disadvantage is that it becomes lost in the list archive.

This is an old problem communication science solved centuries ago:
generally you have those generating information and those collecting it.
Asking the sources to organize information is many times as useless as
asking the documenters to generate new data.

I keep thinking the right approach in our case is:

- maemo.org should provide the right infrastructure to document easily
(getting there).

- the maemo team should make sure that all the essential information
reaches the official documentation (still a while to get there).

- the maemo community could help organizing themselves in wiki-based
collaboration and pointing essential information missing in the official
documentation (up to you, tell us where we can help).

I keep insisting in a clear separation between official and community
documentation. Don't get me wrong, I think the quality and usefulness of
community docs can match and outsmart official documentation, in maemo
and in any software project (in fact in *any* type of project). But
think on the zillions of newcomers we want to welcome: most of them are
looking for a single, comprehensive and reliable source of information,
structured in a way that makes sense in order to find what I'm looking
for. These are elements required in good quality official documentation,
while these same elements can kill community workflow (generally quite
spontaneous) if not handled properly.

Quim