The Shadow of Yesterday's Open Source Publishing Adventure

[J B Bell]

Heya, Clint,

You mentioned on these boards that TSOY was something of an adventure in using 100% open source tools.  I haven't been able to search up much more about that.

Would you be willing to outline the process you used to develop TSOY, just in terms of how editing, layout, and publishing to different formats worked?  I suspect it's liable to be the exact model I'd like to emulate.  You even used a source repository!  How cool is that?

Eagerly awaiting an extended colophon,

--JB

[Clinton R. Nixon]

JB,

I need to sit down and write down everything I used. Here's an overview, though.

I wrote everything in vim, which no one should do unless they are a huge geek. I used reStructured Text to make the text easy to read and easy to translate to HTML. This is also way too computer-geekly for most. The text was saved in a Subversion repository at cvsdude.org.

After translating the text to HTML, I moved it into OpenOffice. This is where the non-computer people should listen. OpenOffice is like Microsoft Office, except:

a) Free.
b) It makes PDFs - for free.
c) Better.

It works for Windows and Linux, and kinda-maybe-sorta for Macintosh.

I then used Scribus to layout the text. Scribus is like PageMaker or Quark XPress, except:

a) Free.
b) Better.

Unfortunately, Scribus is only easy to use on Linux, and kinda-of on Macintosh. If you have a Linux-user friend, he can either help you get Linux working on your computer part-time (we call it a dual-boot) or maybe, if he's super-smart, get Scribus working on Windows.

I used the CVS (non-geeks: this means they wrote it yesterday) version of Scribus, which includes support for importing OpenOffice documents. This was by far the easiest time I've ever had importing a word processor document into a desktop publishing application.

So, JB, what parts of the process are you more curious about?

[J B Bell]

Vim.  You totally rock.

As for what I want to know:  Does the reStructuredText document remain your "master", or is it now abandoned in favor of your nicely-laid-out Scribus doc?  Obviously you can't track changes on that (unless it's some kind of XML-based nightmare I don't even want to know about) in any kind of version repository.  I guess I'm asking whether you'd be using the same process for future changes, or if it was more of an initial draft deal.

I've been looking at DocBook as a possible master format for my work, led there by accident since you were using DocTools, apparently a whole different ball of wax.  I like the ide of rST though, since it keeps my dirty mitts off all the weird controls until I've written some, y'know, text.  I actually keep a manual typewriter to break out of the kind of writer's block I get where I can endlessly look for the Perfect Tool.  Maybe restricting myself to vim would have a similar wholesome effect, while also allowing nicer conversions.

Is the printed TSOY also under a CC license, or is that only the HTML version online?

That's the remainder of my questions, I think.  Thanks!

--JB

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Vim.  You totally rock.

As for what I want to know:  Does the reStructuredText document remain your "master", or is it now abandoned in favor of your nicely-laid-out Scribus doc?  Obviously you can't track changes on that (unless it's some kind of XML-based nightmare I don't even want to know about) in any kind of version repository.  I guess I'm asking whether you'd be using the same process for future changes, or if it was more of an initial draft deal.

It's my master copy, although I've now made some changes in Scribus because it was easier to do (rather than update the master doc and re-import into Scribus.) I'm going to go back and make my changes in the rST document.

Is the printed TSOY also under a CC license, or is that only the HTML version online?

Everything but the art. I meant it earlier when I told Keith Senkowski that you could get all new art, re-format it, and publish it yourself. Better though - this means you can make your own supplements and sell them.

[DevP]

...and it is because of this that Clinton Got Slashdotted. Nice!

[Tav_Behemoth]

Congrats! I've long craved Slashdot coverage - they did a nice bit on Paranoia XP - and TSOY is fully deserving. I made it into NewsForge but that's not nearly as cool.