Re: [Protux-devel] Regarding Release Coordination

[rsff]

Hi Everybody,

Sorry about the months of silence. Lately i've been very busy because I
am completing my undergrudate work, and entering graduate studies (about
Bossa-Nova, and Jazz, BTW). I've also been working (playing) a lot of
things, and working lots of stuff in order to get my life, post
undergrad, going. So this basically meant I didn't have any time to work
on protux, and thus the help-file was not updated.

However, someone said about making a script which would generate our
help.text out of JMB map. I thought this was probably prudent, however,
I have absolutely no idea how to aproach this, especially because I'm
not a programmer, as much as I would like to be. This would help a lot
to make the help.text file be kept always up to date.

Regarding the new release scheme, coordination and the help/manual files
I would have two cents to add: help.text needs to be always up to date
(althought, this time, I really really didn't do this!). The Manual only
needs to have a first draft until the real stable release (1.0). 

But I definately can't do it alone. I can layout basic chapters,
however, I have no idea how to go about describing the features, as I
don't understand some of them yet. You guys could help doing this: write
the basic contents of what you think needs to be in the manual. It
doens't need to be in full sentences. I'll make it in a "good" english
writing, and organize it in the Latex source. We'll work from there.

I'm also thinking about moving everything to docbook, but I have never
coded in docbook which would make this quite dificult. The advantage
would be the obvious: to have multiple version-formats for the manuals.
I would need time to learn docbook however, which I something that I do
not have. Latex seems fine for the moment. 

Lastly, about Protux not having any projection, a couple things need to
be done if we want to get userbase: 

1. Get RPMs and Debs to be distributed on the site. I know, its unstable
release code. However, people, and especially musicians, don't
understand nor do they care to understand about compiling things. Debs
and RPMs are good solutions for this;

2. We need to setup a protux-announce list, so people can sign up. We
would only send a message when a major release/milestone release is
available.

3. Send the word out to the world. This means contacting Linuxapps,  and
other sites. Getting a link to the Ardour page (and vice versa perhaps
would be a good policy). I sent an email to Dave Phillips, and as you
can see, we are in his  Linux and Sound App page, with a small piece of
text saying, "protux at new release 0.20". Bottom line is, we have a
great piece of software, but that isn't enough to get things going.
People won't notice us unless we call their attention, and so we have to
make noise (no pun intented).

4. This is a far-fetched idea, but its a good one. We are making free
software for recording. How about we begin distributing free sound-clips
recorded in Protux too? Call it a Protux Free Sound Arquive, or
something like that. This could take up space, but its a great way to
get musicians to notice Protux...

[]s for you all.
Fabio.
-- 
rsff <address@hidden>