[Asterisk-doc] Minutes of the first "conferece call"

[Leif Madsen]

Comments inline

> -----Original Message-----
> From: asterisk-doc-admin@lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-doc-
> admin@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Jared Smith
> Sent: Sunday, May 16, 2004 10:30 PM
> To: Asterisk-Doc@lists.digium.com
> Subject: [Asterisk-doc] Minutes of the first "conferece call"
> 
> Well, we're off to a great start!  By the time I got to the conference,
> hermie and I were the only ones around.  The conference call didn't seem
> to be working correctly (or maybe I was the only one dialed in), so we
> had the discussion over IRC.

Ugh, my Internet was being funky all day.  I was around, unfortunately I
couldn't get connected to the conference in time.

> Here are the things we discussed:
> 
> Project goals:  We discussed the goals of our project, and agreed that
> our first priority is getting some good "dead tree" documentation for
> Asterisk.  A secondary goal should be to try to get the book published
> if possible.  Along those same lines, we agreed that the book should be
> published under an "open" license.

I agree.  I think we need to start thinking about doing something like
Digium does and have people sign a waiver or something to release the
documentation to the group.  If we are ever going to have this published, we
obviously need to have some sort or legalities figured out before we get too
much further.

> Level of detail:  We discussed what level of detail we ought to go into
> with regards to Asterisk.  We decided that the book should be aimed
> towards someone who has a solid understanding of Linux (or BSD, for
> those of you who lean that direction) systems administration.  (In other
> words, we're not going to teach you how to use "vi" to edit text
> files.)  The book will also assume that the reader has at least a basic
> understanding of telephony.

How much telephony background are we going to expect?  Is there going to be
a section on some of the basic's of telephony?  I honestly don't have a very
strong background in telephony, other than what I have taken in college and
learned through the use of Asterisk.  Obviously someone should know how a
telephone works, at least in some context...

> Process:  Until we get so many volunteers that it becomes burdensome,
> we'll use the mailing list to discuss changes and propose writing
> certain chapters.  The suggestion was also made that we elect people to
> be "section leaders" over a section of the book, and they would make
> sure all the chapters in that section are being worked on and have a
> consistent feel.  In the future, we may write some web-apps to help
> facilitate the management of the different sections being worked in.

Agreed.   I would like to see the http://www.asteriskdocs.org website be
used a bit more.  I'm curious what backend we should use, or should we write
a custom backend?  The custom backend idea seems like excessive work, when
we can probably just customize and existing one.  I'd at least like to see a
news/announcements section just to make the website look active.

> Focus:  We discussed whether to focus on finishing the layout before we
> start writing chapters, or to just get the chapters written and then
> finish worrying about the layout.  At this point, we've got a fairly
> good layout, and we really need to start writing some documentation.
> The decision was made to start writing docs, and to review the layout at
> a later time, when we could view it in the context of having at least a
> few chapters completely fleshed out.

Should we at least have a look over the book and see if there are sections
we don't want to keep?  I'm wondering if some of the sections we have setup
to have written are maybe a little too advanced, or slightly off the topic
of Asterisk use?  Mostly the programming section... how indepth are we going
to get?

> Communication:  We discussed having regular meetings to keep up interest
> and discuss the state of the project.  We're hoping to make meetings
> such as this a regular event.  Should we get together every week?  Every
> two weeks?

I suggest we have one at least once a week just to keep people thinking
about it, and fresh things in our minds.  I agree that even if it's just a
short meeting, anything is better than nothing.  What day and time seems
good, as I'd like to be able to get people in all time zones able to
participate... any suggestions? (especially by people from "the old world")

> Leadership:  It was decided that we probably shouldn't elect Blitzrage
> as our leader when he's not present in the meeting.  When we have more
> people in the meeting, we should elect a leader.  (You dodged a bullet,
> blitzrage... you really dodged a bullet.)

LOL.  Well, come what may.

> That's it, folks... If you don't like what was decided, then show up to
> next week's meeting and we'll discuss more.  Until then...

When do you want to have it again?

Leif Madsen aka blitzrage.