2003 10 The Linux Documentation Project 2003-06-22 Nihil nove sub sole (that's Latin for Nothing new under the sun). Simon Anderson is in the process of reviewing a document which he presents as the Linux Wireless Access Point HOWTO and requests your comments. It needs to be compared to the Wireless HOWTO and the Wireless Linksys WPC11 Mini-HOWTO. We always like to see more women joining us, so make Emma Jane Hogbin feel at home. She submitted an ACPI HOWTO - ACPI being the next generation power management tool. Saqib Ali converted his Apache-WebDAV-LDAP-HOWTO from SGML to XML. Mendel Leo Cooper sent in v1.9 of the Advanced Bash scripting Guide, which fixes a couple of serious errata. Two HOWTOs updated this week: Miroslav Skoric updated his FBB Packet-radio BBS mini-HOWTO to v1.19. And we received v2.2.6 of the DocBook-OpenJade-SGML-XML-HOWTO, by Saqib Ali. That's about the conclusion of last week's major thread on the discuss mailing list. In an ever-changing environment, our documents become outdated tremendously fast: a one year old HOWTO is like pre-historic charcoal writing on stone. Apart from people with a technical background, we also need user reviews to check on a document's usability. Not only will user comments improve on readability; if more people read a HOWTO and comment on it, it would be easier to make out which are just hype and which are useful for the general public, as David Lawyer pointed out in the discussion. While on the subject, several means of getting more volunteers were discussed. It was generally agreed that neither mailing the LUGS about every review needed, nor advertising this in Slashdot would improve greatly on the current situation. Indeed, one can hardly be forced to be a volunteer. So let's just apply to your goodwill: make your skills known to us - even if your only skill is that you speak English, and join the LDP! In my (Tille's) point of view, even if you can only do a little bit, you owe it to the community, for being able to use such a good system. Joining the discuss mailing list discuss-subscribe@en.tldp.org.NOSPAM would be a good start. We look forward to hearing from you soon! Several governments, among which the European, can now subsidize your work for TLDP. Check with your local representative. As a side-effect, copyright laws came up in this lengthy discussion. Of course there's the law: in almost any country all writing is copyright, on any medium, and you need the author's permission to do anything with it. But since most authors are rather flattered to be quoted, remember that getting approval can be arranged in a convivial style. Please help us create this weekly newsletter. Seen a site putting in a story with a link to the LDP? Completed the translation of any HOWTO? Know of any articles about the LDP published in newspapers or magazines? You can update us by sending in links and information at feedback@en.tldp.org. LDP Weekly News is edited by Machtelt Garrels, Torsten Schlabach and Y Giridhar Appaji Nag with help from several other people.