Author: Anne Gentle
Source: Planet OpenStack
As part of the OpenSource track at Grace Hopper, Anne Gentle will share findings and best practices while running a large documentation site for multiple open source projects within OpenStack as one of three “Lightning Talks” on Oct. 15 from 2:30-3:30 p.m.
Check out this video of Anne talking about her experiences with Grace Hopper, being a mid-career woman in tech, and the talks she’s giving this week Open Source Presentations: Collaborating on GitHub for Open Source Documentation and Journey Into Continuous Glucose Monitoring Technology as a Parent:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V43Httq0SI?feature=oembed&wmode=opaque]One of my callings in this world is open source documentation and collaboration.
That’s pretty specific, you might say, and you’d be correct. Lucky for me I have found a niche that matches my interest in user support, documentation and deeply technical problem solving.
I’ve been working in open source documentation since about 2008, when I helped write the manual for the One Laptop Per Child XO laptop and Sugar operating system in a week-long book sprint. I was investigating innovative ways to bring authors closer to both each other and their intended audiences. Open source had this ethos to the extreme, and I was hooked.
At Grace Hopper, I’m speaking about my experiences with OpenStack over the last five years here at Rackspace, where we collaborate using developer techniques. We review patches, track doc issues, continuously publish changes as well as version documentation by publishing from stable branches.
Generally we treat docs like code. OpenStack doc contributors use the exact same processes as OpenStack code contributors, so we have equal rights in the community for elections, access and passes at the twice-annual OpenStack Summits, as well as a Project Technical Lead (PTL) and core reviewers. We merged more than 1,800 docs changes from 267 people in the last six months for the latest release of OpenStack.
I’ve written two articles recently about using git and GitHub for open source documentation.
The first is Git and GitHub for Documentation, describing reviews, issue tracking, and merging so many changes by collaborating with git workflows.
The second is Continuous integration and delivery for documentation, a technical deep dive into the continuous integration and continuous delivery systems we have for OpenStack documentation, co-authored by Andreas Jaeger. The OpenStack Infrastructure team and the Rackspace Cloud powers the build systems for every single doc change and code change that goes into OpenStack.
The wonderful connection to Grace Hopper is that one of the OpenStack Infrastructure team members, Elizabeth K. Joseph, is presenting directly before my session!
I’m looking forward to talking to like-minded technical people who recognize the power of support and documentation in open source and beyond.
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