Linux man-pages project maintenance

Linux man-pages project maintenance

[Alejandro Colomar]

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Hi all,

As you know, I've been maintaining the Linux man-pages project for the
last 4 years as a voluntary.  I've been doing it in my free time, and no
company has sponsored that work at all.  At the moment, I cannot sustain
this work economically any more, and will temporarily and indefinitely
stop working on this project.  If any company has interests in the
future of the project, I'd welcome an offer to sponsor my work here; if
so, please let me know.

Have a lovely day!
Alex

-- 
<https://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>

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Re: Linux man-pages project maintenance

[Michael Kerrisk (man7.org)]

Hello Alex

On Fri, 6 Sept 2024 at 15:02, Alejandro Colomar <alx@kernel.org> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> As you know, I've been maintaining the Linux man-pages project for the
> last 4 years as a voluntary.  I've been doing it in my free time, and no
> company has sponsored that work at all.  At the moment, I cannot sustain
> this work economically any more, and will temporarily and indefinitely
> stop working on this project.  If any company has interests in the
> future of the project, I'd welcome an offer to sponsor my work here; if
> so, please let me know.

Ouch! I guess first of all I just want to say thanks for all the
high-quality work that you have put into the project. It's been
tremendous!

And then: thanks for keeping the project alive! When a series of
personal events led to me more or less burning out on the project, it
would have crashed if you hadn't already arrived.

It is of course nonsense that for most of its life, the maintenance of
the project has not got some sort of funding. (For a bit more than 6
months, my work on the project was funded from a pot contributed to by
a few companies, but that money dried up in the 2008 GFC.) I hope that
someone(s) comes through on funding, but I'm not holding my breath:
most everyone agrees that documentation is a great thing (a "time
multiplier"), but it's often the last thing on which money is spent.

Cheers,

Michael


--
Michael Kerrisk, man7.org Training and Consulting
mtk@man7.org, http://man7.org/training/
"The Linux Programming Interface" -- http://man7.org/tlpi/

Re: Linux man-pages project maintenance

[Stefan Puiu]

Hi Alex,

On Fri, Sep 6, 2024 at 4:06 PM Alejandro Colomar <alx@kernel.org> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> As you know, I've been maintaining the Linux man-pages project for the
> last 4 years as a voluntary.  I've been doing it in my free time, and no
> company has sponsored that work at all.  At the moment, I cannot sustain
> this work economically any more, and will temporarily and indefinitely
> stop working on this project.  If any company has interests in the
> future of the project, I'd welcome an offer to sponsor my work here; if
> so, please let me know.

Thanks for all the work you put in. It's true, oftentimes in the Linux
world documentation does not get the attention it deserves, so kudos
to you (and Michael before you) for taking up this underappreciated
task!

Stefan.

>
> Have a lovely day!
> Alex
>
> --
> <https://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>

AW: Linux man-pages project maintenance

[Walter Harms]

Hello Alex,

1. thx for alll your work
2. i can full understand, i also had to reduce the time i spend with several OS projects
3. is there a plan how to go forward (beside a white knight) ?

CU
________________________________________
Von: Stefan Puiu <stefan.puiu@gmail.com>
Gesendet: Montag, 9. September 2024 10:28
An: Alejandro Colomar
Cc: linux-man@vger.kernel.org; linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org; libc-alpha@sourceware.org
Betreff: Re: Linux man-pages project maintenance

Hi Alex,

On Fri, Sep 6, 2024 at 4:06 PM Alejandro Colomar <alx@kernel.org> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> As you know, I've been maintaining the Linux man-pages project for the
> last 4 years as a voluntary.  I've been doing it in my free time, and no
> company has sponsored that work at all.  At the moment, I cannot sustain
> this work economically any more, and will temporarily and indefinitely
> stop working on this project.  If any company has interests in the
> future of the project, I'd welcome an offer to sponsor my work here; if
> so, please let me know.

Thanks for all the work you put in. It's true, oftentimes in the Linux
world documentation does not get the attention it deserves, so kudos
to you (and Michael before you) for taking up this underappreciated
task!

Stefan.

>
> Have a lovely day!
> Alex
>
> --
> <https://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>

Re: Linux man-pages project maintenance

[Alejandro Colomar]

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Hello Fotios!

I guess it's time for some (pre-)anouncement.  :-)

On Tue, Nov 05, 2024 at 02:06:00PM GMT, Fotios Valasiadis wrote:
> Hello Alex,
> 
> I too am thankful for your work, manpages were the only doc I had as a
> low level dev writing tools utilizing some of linux's niche system
> calls, literally wouldn't have managed without them.

Thank you very much!  I've felt a lot of support and appreciation from
the community after the anuncement from September.  I'd like to thank
everyone who showed their support and spread the news.  I've also
received a lot of support from small companies, which suprised me for
good; they offered what they could to get me back to maintaining the
project.  That's very much appreciated.  It's amazing how quick this
situation has been resolved, and it's thanks to the community (and some
people who have helped a lot with the Linux Foundation).

> I see you are somewhat active again, out of curiosity, did you find
> funding, or are you contributing some patches voluntarily once more?

We've been talking for a couple of months, and we have already agreed to
sign a contract through the LF, where a number of companies provide
the funds for the contract.  The contract will cover the next 12 months
for the agreed amount, and we should sign it in the following days.
Since I've already seen a draft of the contract, and it looks good, I've
already started maintaining the project again, starting on Nov 1st.

I will make another anouncement when the contract is signed, where I'd
like to publicly thank the sponsors, and make it official that I'll
stay as maintainer, but yeah, you can count on that.  :)

> Mind you I ain't assuming you are back as a maintainer just because
> you got some patches handled.
> 
> Thanks!
> Fotis

Have a lovely night!
Alex

-- 
<https://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>

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