The GTK+ Reference Documentation Project
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What is it?

GTK+ is already a very stable, powerful, and flexible toolkit. The greatest lack at the current time is good reference documentation.

The GTK+ Reference Documentation Project (RDP) aims to provide a complete set of reference material for the GLib, GDK, and GTK+ libraries.

What will be the format of the documentation?

The reference documentation will be based on the DocBook SGML DTD.

It will be created using the gtk-doc system, which parses C header files and creates 'template' files which are then filled in by the authors. These template files are then converted into DocBook SGML, and from there to HTML, man pages, or printed output.

What will be the license of the documentation?

Although the details have not yet been finalized, the material created by the RDP will be placed under a quite unrestrictive license, which will allow the redistribution and reprinting of the included material.

Any example code included in the documentation will be placed in the public domain.

What's the connection to Red Hat Software?

A group of authors (Owen Taylor, Tim Janik, and Ian Main) are working on a book about GTK+ to be published by Red Hat Software. As part of the book, they wanted to include a reference for GTK+. Since reference material should be maintained along with the source code, it was decided that the best course was to make the creation of the reference documentation a public project, ask for contributions from outside, and to make the result freely available for reprinting and redistribution.

Do contributors need to sign a copyright assignment?

Yes. Since the goal of the project is to produce publishable material, we feel it is important to have an unambiguous and defensible license on the documentation. The only way to do this is to have clear ownership of copyright.

Although the details have, again, not been finalized, the intention is to have the assignee be Red Hat Software. We feel that this is the most convenient solution, and should not pose a problem. However, if you want to contribute to the project, but, for some reason, don't find this acceptable, please let us know, and we'll try to work out an alternative arrangement.

How do I contribute?

Have a look at the status page to see which sections have not already been taken. Then mail damon@karuna.freeserve.co.uk with a list of sections you are willing to write.

We'll divide up the work to avoid duplication of effort, and get back to you with an "assignment".

Once the details are decided upon, you'll be asked to sign and mail in an assignment of copyright. Your work will not be incorporated into the distributed versions until we receive this.

Because of the need for clear copyright ownership, please make sure that all contributions you make are your original work. Do not copy text from elsewhere.



Damon Chaplin, 9 Feb 1999.