Wow... I did not expect such a response! I'll tackle the quick topics first and save the meat for the end of the email. I apologize if this isn't proper mailing list etiquette to reply to all in one email, but to me it's better than sending 7+ separate replies.
> I'm happy to work together on this, if you'd like, but I'm unlikely > to publish much if I'm left to my own devices. We can hop on a call > to discuss if you like. Steven, I replied to your last email directly: let's continue the discussion there. > There is also an official GNUstep channel at IRC, a live chat server, at Libera: gry, I messaged you. I've been on it for a short time, but it doesn't seem very active. > We have moved most of our real time chat to Zulip Ethan, this was something I didn't want to bring up on my original list of grievances... I've witnessed less activity on the Zulip than the Libera IRC channel. It just seems like another Slack clone to remind me how much I hate Slack when I'm not at work. I'm not opposed to something like IRC, but it looks like good old mailing lists are still where most prefer to communicate for this. Thankfully mailing lists aren't going anywhere anytime soon. > I Could find some moments in the next months to help on that topic Jm, any help will probably be appreciated. Overall, I think this is a big project that will take more than a few months, given that this is volunteer work and it's been a problem for years. > on Saturday the 8th of March 2025 our monthly GNUstep meeting takes > place Lars, thank you for bringing that up. Unfortunately, I will be unavailable at that time. How can I know when these meetings will be so that I can try to fit them into my schedule in the future? > I am currently very busy but I am the maintainer of the new website > draft at https://gnustep.github.io/. > With that said is gnustep.org being replaced with gnustep.github.io? > no, www.gnustep.org is not being replaced by gnustep.github.io . The > latter is being used to make a documentation website using different > tools. Is this going to be the official location for GNUstep documentation moving forward? If not, having gnustep.github.io be an official part of GNUstep is confusing. > Fixing that opens a long and tedious discussion about the github > presence. I am against, other people, including our leader, were in > favor. I don't want to open a can of worms, as this is probably only worth pursuing if a large number of contributors refuse to use GitHub. As much as I wish that Microsoft never existed, I have to live in the real world. Having one central area to work does have its benefits. > since this is an open source project run as a commodity, there isn't a > Marketing manager or a Documentation Team or whatever. I understand, but at the same time there is a GNUstep leader. Someone needs to make the big picture decisions, otherwise no one will and nothing will be finalized. Or worse: everyone will and it'll be a mess! > If by documentation you refer to the reference documentation, I just > regenerated at the new release and with the updated tools, so if there > is something broken, it would be of interest to me and Richard. Perhaps I chose the wrong word here. I meant tutorials, the wiki, the website, the reference documentation; all of it. Maybe literature is a better word to encompass this. One fun example: I've found conflicting information where one page said GNUstep _is_ a desktop and another that said GNUstep is _not_ a desktop! Thinking back to the "legacy" Cocoa documentation, it was one of the most delightful and comforting aspects of it. It was thoughtfully put together and it was complete. GNUstep may have implemented many of Cocoa's technical accomplishments, but has fallen short on this less glamorous, yet critical, side of software. > Are you limited in your work by time? by the lack of information or by > the perceived issue? Limited on the development side by knowledge and experience. I haven't used Objective-C in a long time. My career changed and I stopped programming, but I'm currently picking it back up and starting with C for now. Time is always an issue! However, I know that GNUstep is large and I'm willing to commit to the years required to learn it. The problem I'm at now is that I'm overwhelmed by the lack of clarity in the GNUstep resources. > Maybe the wiki would be a good place for such implements? > If you find broken links... well the best thing is to look and fix the > information. > I found about 270 broken links with a link checking tool for > www.gnustep.org. > Just removing it might be a loss of information, it needs to be > thought for. > I did quite some work on the Website and the wiki after they came back > online, but especially the wiki is huge and non-linear, it is not easy > to check and external URLs that continually mutate. Would the best approach to this be some type of project tracker? Nothing fancy, just a collaborative place where we can collect, organize, and prioritize all of these issues; then tackle fixing them so we don't waste time on the same work. A markdown file on GitHub is enough for me, though something a little more advanced could help us be more efficient. Riccardo, alas, I am out of time. I still have many more questions about this though, and it seems like you're the person I was looking to contact. My original intent was to figure out the best way to assist with the literature/documentation as it's truly too much for one man. Would you prefer I email you directly? -- Luke Lollard
