FLOSS Manuals
FormationJuly 2006 (2006-07)
TypeNGO and Non-profit Foundation
Location
FieldsSoftware Freedom
Key people
Adam Hyde
Websiteflossmanuals.net

The FLOSS Manuals (FM) is a non-profit foundation founded in 2006 by Adam Hyde and based in the Netherlands. The foundation is focused on the creation of quality documentation about how to use free software.

Its web site is a wiki (previously using the TWiki and Booki programs, now using Booktype) focused on the collaborative authoring of manuals. The documentation is licensed under the GPL. Although initially the manuals were covered by the GFDL, the material was relicensed to the GPL due to concerns about the limitations of the GFDL.[1]

Anyone can contribute to the material at FLOSS Manuals. Each manual has a maintainer – very much like the Debian maintainer system. The maintainer keeps an overview of the manual and discusses with those interested the structure, etc. The maintainer is also responsible for gathering new contributors together. Not all edits are 'live' – the edits are published to the manual when ready. This is to ensure the quality of the manuals is as high and as reliable as possible and that no new user encounters 'half finished' content.

Manuals are available as HTML online, or indexed PDF. Additionally manuals can be remixed so anyone can create their own manual and export to indexed PDF, HTML (ZIP/tar) or an 'Ajax' include.

In fall 2007, Floss manuals was awarded a 15,000 Euro prize by the Dutch Digital Pioneer fund.[2] It has also been financially supported by Google[3] and NLnet.[4] FLOSS Manuals also received a Transmediale Award for its work on Booki[5] and has also been featured in the Texas Linux Fest 2010.[6]

List of manuals

FLOSS Manuals has manuals for all of the following.

SoftwareManuals
CRM CiviCRM (mobile access - CiviMobile), CiviCRM Developer Guide
Office Firefox, Chromium, OpenOffice, Thunderbird
Digital signal processing Pure Data
File system FSLint
One laptop per child Reading And Leading With One Laptop Per Child; Make Sugar Activities, XO, Write, Terminal, Chat Activity, Browse Activity, Record Activity, Turtle Art Activity
Free culture Collaborative Futures
CMS Newscoop, Plumi
Broadcasting Airtime
Internet freedom How to Bypass Internet Censorship, An Open Web, Basic Internet Security
Translation Open Translation Tools, Video Subtitling
Video Theora Cookbook, Kino, Avidemux, GTranscode, ffmpeg2theora, HandBrake
Free network services FLOSS Manuals, Book Sprints, Wikimedia Commons, Archive.org, Freedom Fone
Free software/open source Google Summer of Code Mentoring
Graphic design Digital Foundations, Alchemy, Inkscape, Scribus
3D Blender
HTML editing Nvu, BlueGriffon
Blogging WordPress
Media players MPlayer, VLC, Miro
VOIP Linphone
File sharing Azureus
Streaming MuSE, M3W, Icecast
Video subtitling Video Subtitling, Jubler
Linux Linux Command-line Intro
Audio Audio Production, Ardour, Audacity, Csound
Type design FontForge
Human Rights OpenEvSys
Book production Booktype, Booki User Guide
Performance UpStage
Collaborative Mapping OpenStreetMap

Popularity

Some manuals have been selected for inclusion on the VALO-CD, a collection of the best software for Windows.

References

  1. "License Change". Archived from the original on 4 January 2017. Retrieved 3 October 2010.
  2. "Mimoa, Floss Manuals and Beelden uit ons Verleden win Digital Pioneers Academy". Archived from the original on 3 January 2017. Retrieved 2 January 2017.
  3. "Day 3: Word Count". Archived from the original on 13 September 2010. Retrieved 3 October 2010.
  4. "NLNet".
  5. "Transmediale Awards".
  6. "Texas Linux Fest 2010". Archived from the original on 17 July 2010. Retrieved 5 October 2010.
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