Wiki vs Google docs [was: Re: Amarok 2.0 beta 3 announcement]

[Lydia Pintscher]

On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 9:48 AM, Sven Krohlas <sven at asbest-online.de> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>> As i know, we're making announcements on docs.google.com
>> <http://docs.google.com/>. Did it change? I've made the doc for it, and
>> invited some people ;)
>
> Well, that's not carved in stone. In former times we used the Wiki, the
> people who do the main part of the work atm like Google Docs.
>
> And, I have to confess, I put it on the Wiki to start exactly that
> discussion. So thanks for replying. :-)

...

> Of course both of them have their pros and cons. This is how I see it:
>
> ==Google docs==
> + collaborative editing
> - invitations (not open for spontaneous and unregular contributors)
> - proprietary with all its disadvantages
>
> ==Wiki==
> + completely open, everyone can contribute, espacially those spontaneous
>  and unregular contributors, who might become very active ones in the
>  future
> - no collaborative editing
>
> For me being open is the more important thing: we don't have an army of
> article writers. Collab editing is very cool indeed, but when only two
> people are editing this can also be managed in the Wiki (editing different
> paragraphs, for example).
>
> And, I don't have a system full of free software just to let it run
> proprietary code again on a higher level (the browser)...
>
> Stallman just recently also talked about that problem from another perspective:
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/29/cloud.computing.richard.stallman
>
> cu


Ok here is how I see this:
I have been writing the last release notes. Sometimes I got help,
sometimes I didn't. I asked for people to help me with writing them on
this list and on IRC. I invited those who wanted to help. To be
completely honest a wiki sucks balls for writing release notes. End of
story. Some reasons are formatting, collaborative editing and so on
and so on. I am not going to do it there. Google Docs offers comments,
simultaneous editing, easy invitation of more contributors and so on
and so on and is the place where I have a lot of other documents
anyway.

And sorry I don't really care too much about hit-and-run-contributors
for our release notes if that means making my work harder.

So unless someone can come up with a solution that gives me all the
benefits of Google Docs this is not going to change. That solution is
neither a wiki nor Gobby.


Cheers
Lydia

-- 
Lydia Pintscher
Amarok community manager
kde.org - amarok.kde.org - kubuntu.org
claimid.com/nightrose