What to do with using_samba?

[David Collier-Brown]

On 05/27/2013 08:56 AM, Andrew Bartlett wrote:
> On Mon, 2013-05-27 at 08:46 -0400, Scott Lovenberg wrote:
>> On May 27, 2013, at 5:06 AM, Andrew Bartlett <abartlet at samba.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Back in 2008, Using Samba (3rd ed) was added.
>>>
>>> commit e1cf19b2d88aa5555e63087111820e09b899508f
>>> Author: Gerald (Jerry) Carter <jerry at samba.org>
>>> Date:   Tue May 27 12:02:27 2008 -0500
>>>
>>>    Adding initial copy of "Using Samba (3rd ed)"
>>>    (This used to be commit b77c46a36366d25dcdbc476963fbf43aaa4b9801)
>>>
>>> Kai reminds me that the only modification of this document since then
>>> has been to remove paragraphs that reference removed parameters, and we
>>> both wonder if there is any real value being the repository of this
>>> document.
>>>
>>> The same could be said for the Howto Collection and By Example books,
>>> but we don't even publish the 3rd edition to our website!  (The website
>>> has only the second edition). 
>>>
>>> Any thoughts?  Is there somewhere else hosting and maintaining this in
>>> parallel?
>>>
>> That document is so far out of date that it should probably be
>> dropped.  It's barely more modern than the "speed" section of the
>> HOWTO that you recently removed.  
>>
>> In my mind, the Wiki has supplanted the books and is much easier to
>> keep up to date as a "living document" (I hate that term).  Granted, a
>> wiki is harder to ship as documentation, but keeping out of date
>> documentation is even worse, IMHO.
>>
>> I spoke with John Tepstra about a new revision of the book a couple of
>> years back. He said that there probably would not be another printed
>> version any time soon. I'd preorder an updated printed version if
>> someone was to take up the work on updating the current version. 
> To be clear, there are 3 books:  Using Samba, Samba By Example, and the
> Samba HOWTO and Reference Guide.  However, I do see how your comments
> would apply to a greater and lesser extent to all of them.
>
> The HOWTO is the most challenging, because it drew on many old
> documents, some of which were out of date before they were collected
> into the book.  I've not read 'Using Samba'.  All need work, if only
> because they so often refer to things that are no longer true with Samba
> 4.0.
>
> The wiki is great in some ways, and I'm torn as what to do with the
> 'mostly accurate' books.  Are they better than what has grown in the
> wiki from nothing?  Should we seed the wiki with them, or will they be
> just as un-maintained there?  
>
> We talked a bit about this before (Sept or so), and decided to keep them
> for now, and I tried to remove the really out of date content. 
>
> Andrew Bartlett
>

Anyone want to work on a 4th edition, to pitch to O'Reilly to come out
as of the time 3.x is no longer needed?

I recollect that the first edition came out just as the program hit a
natural change-point, and that drove sales of the paper version.

--dave

-- 
David Collier-Brown,         | Always do right. This will gratify
System Programmer and Author | some people and astonish the rest
davecb at spamcop.net           |                      -- Mark Twain
(416) 223-8968