Re: Project for SEUL?

[Aaron Turner <aturner@linuxkb.org>]

Hi Ben,

Well I can't say that the LinuxKB is doing that, since we're a web based
documentation engine rather than a prog on the users system.  I do think
that there is definately a place for something like this, though I think
it should not only be able to return results for the included
documentation on your harddisk, but also query an online DB like the
LinuxKB.  I know Cheek Consulting's KB has an app that you can install
which will query their database for answers, but I don't know how much
it's being utilized by people or what it can do feature-wise.  (Jospeh
Cheek is on the linuxkb-discuss list so maybe he can jump in here and
provide some stats & info.)  

Anyways, IMHO for something like this to really work you need:

1) The distributions to include this on their CD's
2) The ability to deal with man, texinfo, and /usr/doc files
3) Ability to query an online DB like the LinuxKB if internet access is
available for additional content.
4) Get people (newbies) aware of the app
5) Bonus points for phrase searching, rating "hits", and natural language
interface.
6) A nice interface (use Lynx or something)

#1 is easy.  I'm sure Roger and I have enough contacts for Red Hat, SuSE,
and Debian to get this to happen.

#3 is easy, because I can make it happen, and having an OpenAPI for the KB
is one of our future goals for our site.

#2 is probably very doable as well assuming your fluent in Perl.

#4 is going to be a little difficult.  If we can convince the distros to
add a message to their install sequence which says "run command x" for
help (can't understand why they don't do this already) your golden.

#5 is going to be very difficult without using an existing search engine
like ht://dig and then extending it.  Problem with this is disk space
requirements go way up, and people aren't likely to install a 100MB help
tool on their system.  This is why interfacing to a site on the web is so
useful- we've got all the resources to deal with this sort of thing
already.  Of course they've already have to have internet access for this
to work. :(

Anyways, if you or anyone else is interested in working with us to develop
such a tool to interface with our site, I'd love to hear about it.  We
don't have any people resources to help in the development of this right
now, but I'd be willing to talk to you about our OpenAPI which hasn't been
spec'd out yet.  Hell, we don't even have a cool name for it yet :)

If you're interested, I suggest we take this to the linuxkb-discuss list.
Subscription info can be found on www.linuxkb.org.

--
Aaron Turner, Core Developer       http://vodka.linuxkb.org/~aturner/
Linux Knowledge Base Organization  http://linuxkb.org/
Because world domination requires quality open documentation.
aka: aturner@vicinity.com, aturner@pobox.com, ion_beam_head@ashtech.net

On Fri, 3 Dec 1999, Roger R Dingledine wrote:

> 
> the url you want is www.linuxkb.org actually
> i've fwd'ed this to aaron, he'll answer better
> 
> also look at http://www2.inow.com/~conover/nformatix/ for something
> mildly related
> 
> --roger
>  
> > Ben_Tilly@trepp.com wrote:
> > > 
> > > One of the ideas that I have been kicking around goes like this.
> > > 
> > [snipped interesting description]
> > > 
> > > > tip 'Where can I find a good Gimp tutorial?'
> > > > tip 'How do I get rid of a file?'
> > > 
> > > and get pointers to where to look for an answer.
> > > 
> > > This really would bridge the gap between the fact that man pages *have* the
> > > information if you only knew exactly what to look for.  But new users
> > > generally don't know what to look for so they can't even ask the right
> > > question to get an answer.
> > > 
> > So tip would be sort of like locate, only operating on documentation
> > rather than filesystems, eh?  I like the idea.  That would fit nicely
> > with SEUL, I think.  I've CCed this message to Roger Dingledine, who
> > rules on such things.  He's in the middle of thesis and Xmas craziness,
> > so I wouldn't count on a response from him for a couple of weeks. 
> > There's an existing SEUL project for a Linux knowledge base; I don't
> > know much about it, or if it's similar to what you're thinking of. 
> > Anyway, here's its URL <http://linuxkb.seul.org/>.  It's always nice to
> > have a jumping-off point if you can, rather than starting from scratch. 
> > Maybe this could be such.
> > 
> > -- 
> > Doug Loss                 The difference between the right word and
> > Data Network Coordinator  the almost right word is the difference
> > Bloomsburg University     between lightning and a lightning bug.
> > dloss@bloomu.edu                Mark Twain
> > 
>