[AG-TECH] Access Grid Documentation Project

[Jennifer Teig von Hoffman]

Hello all,

Those of you who attended the AG Technical Retreat last week are already
somewhat familiar with the plans for the Access Grid Documentation
Project (AGDP), an effort based in very large part on the Linux
Documentation Project (LDP), which can be found at 
http://www.linuxdoc.org/ .

The AGDP's goal is to provide the canonical set of AG documentation, and
to distribute it freely under a GPL-like license. (For more background on
the AGDP, please see http://scv.bu.edu/~jtvh/talks/agdp.ppt .)

The AGDP, by its very nature, is a community effort. Please take a look
at the list of tasks below, and let me know which you are interested in
helping with:

* Reviewing the AGDP Manifesto. Feedback is due by February 15; I'd like
to firm up the beta version of this by March 1. The current draft of the
Manifesto is at http://scv.bu.edu/~jtvh/talks/agdp-manifesto-draft1.doc .

* Helping to determine which (if any) document formats to require for
submission to the AGDP and for revisions to AGDP documents, as well as
in which document formats we should publish on-line. (Just to give you a
taste of this, the biggest issue at the moment seems to be whether we
should store (but not publish) our documents in SGML -- an open-source,
flexible, but less than ubiquitous format -- or something more ubiquitous
but perhaps not open-source.) I'd especially appreciate it if those with
SGML experience could participate in this process.

* Serving on the team of reviewers which will determine whether submitted
documents are appropriate for posting on the AGDP. (We will not begin
accepting submissions until April 1.)

* Helping to provide day-to-day management and support to the AGDP. Tasks
for this group will most likely include document conversions, tracking of
the review process, and web site maintainence.

* Sending me suggestions for inclusion on a document wish list (ie,
documents we hope somebody, somewhere will write and submit to the AGDP).

All volunteers will be added to the agdp-discuss-l at bu.edu mailing list
(ultimately this list should probably be located at accessgrid.org). If
you'd like to help out with the AGDP and aren't sure how yet, please let
me know and I'll add you to the list too.

Any and all help will be very much appreciated.

Yours,
Jennifer Teig von Hoffman
Senior Analyst/Consultant
Office of Information Technology
Boston University
111 Cummington Street
Boston, MA 02215
(617) 358-0033 phone
(617) 353-6260 fax
jtvh at bu.edu