Ardour Book

At some point, I think Ardour deserves a book that would be on shelves at Barnes&Noble and other places. It could be a straight copy of the online manual (similar to how you can buy “Dive Into Python” at B&N even though the text is freely available online).

It’s probably too early, since there are so many fundamental features still in development. But it’d be a great way to spread word of Ardour and could potentially bring in a TON of new users(and possibly convert them to OSX and/or Linux if they see Ardour as a killer app). Maybe even include the OSX and Linux version on CDs with the book.

I nominate Dave Philips as the best man for this job… :slight_smile:

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Hi,
The source code of the manual is distributed as part of the ardour source, so I guess if anyone wants to contribute by keeping the manual up-to-date or expanding it then they can make changes and submit them via mantis as one would with the code.

Btw, how up-to-date is the manual with regards to new features introduced recently(especially Ardour 2.0.5 and 2.1)?

Are there people that update the manual in sync with release annoucements?

Hi, I have also been thinking for a while that an Ardour book would be very useful. I’d also like to see a book that’s as open and free as the software it’s about.

In my spare time I volunteer with http://flossmanuals.net as a maintainer of another audio software manual. I’d like to propose that this might be a great vehicule for getting an Ardour book project happening.

(FLOSS Manuals is a ‘free documentation for free software’ not-for-profit initiative, set up and run by Adam Hyde, which aims to create high quality manuals for FLOSS projects that are also published free content licences. FM also creates physical books via a print on demand service for some of the manuals. I think this project really fills a gap in FLOSS landscape by building a community specifically around accessible documentation projects that help people really use the good free software that’s out there.)

I have been thinking for a while that Ardour would really be an important project for FLOSS Manuals to do, but I haven’t had time to get anything started yet. I’m also a fairly recent convert to Ardour and an Ardour book would definitely need solid input from more conversant brains in the Ardour community. Seeing this thread, it seems relevant to give FM a mention and try and get a sense of who is around who might be in a good position to contribute to or drive sections of such a project…?