FLOSS Manuals

A sort of proposal to restart FLOSS Manuals.

FLOSS Manuals

When we set up Scavenger Labs in 2018 one of the reasons was to create a legal vehicle for the FLOSS Manuals project to replace the previous one based in the Netherlands. As such the company is called Scavenger Labs FM, the FM being for FLOSS Manuals.

FM logo

About FLOSS Manuals

FLOSS Manuals was founded in 2006 to provide free, high quality documentation for free and open source software. The project pioneered collaborative authoring, book sprints, and remixable manuals that could be downloaded in many formats. Hundreds of contributors produced manuals in multiple languages covering creative, technical, and educational software. The original site remains online at flossmanuals.net, and many of its ideas continue to influence open documentation projects today.

FLOSS Manuals: looking back, and maybe looking forward

by Mick Fuzz

For quite a while now, I have been quietly looking after FLOSS Manuals, keeping the lights on, fixing the occasional link, and trying to make sure that this little corner of the free culture world did not just vanish completely. It has been a kind of graceful decline really. The manuals are still there, still useful in places, but the world around them has changed a lot.

FLOSS Manuals started back in 2006, founded by Adam Hyde e who believed that open source software deserved open documentation. The idea was simple but radical: free manuals for free software, written and maintained by the people who actually used the tools. Over the years, hundreds of contributors helped make guides for everything from Audacity to Pure Data to OpenMRS.

It was an exciting and creative mix of technology, community, and publishing experiment. I got involved early in the process with a focus on honing the documentation that I had been creating as a video and media activist for the Indymedia project and the Undercurrent video activist network.

We experimented with new ways of writing together, from book sprints and remixable chapters to publishing that could turn into HTML, PDF, or print with a single click. The process of writing books collectively and quickly mutated into a process that Adam called Booksprints. When Adam moved on from FLOSS Manuals he focused on facilitating Book Sprints, pass the software over to Sourcefabric and the community management and the legacy of the existing manuals over to me.

The old infrastructure, first Booki and then Booktype, was groundbreaking at the time but also became heavy to maintain. Running servers, managing accounts, and keeping the whole system patched up took more energy than most of us had. Meanwhile, there are now many excellent open documentation tools available. Static site generators such as Hugo, MkDocs, and GitBook have made it much easier to write, share, and publish collaboratively.

So rather than trying to keep one large central system running, it feels like time for a lighter and more decentralised approach. The manuals could live anywhere, whether that is a GitHub repository, a personal server, or a local collective’s website, as long as they follow some shared FLOSS Manuals protocols:

  • Use an open licence such as CC-BY-SA so people can remix, translate, and adapt freely.
  • Keep writing user focused and based on creative and useful activities, not just technical features.
  • Allow simple contribution routes using Git, pull requests, or shared folders.
  • Publish in a lightweight way using static site tools such as Hugo and MKdocs (suggested but not required).
  • Link back to the main flossmanuals.net site so readers can still find and adopt older manuals.

This list is just a start. If you would like to be involved in a conversation about this please do reach out.

The spirit of FLOSS Manuals has always been about more than technical documentation. It is about people teaching each other, making things together, and building community knowledge around open tools. As I start a new project based on media creation and positive mental health – see more on that project JAMM Labs here – after completing my PhD soon hopefully, I want FLOSS Manuals to be a part of that.

So yes, things have slowed down, but the ideas behind it still feel alive. In particular, appropriate use of desktop based creativity and communications tools feel like a positive and grounded response to a computer use landscape flooded with social media hellfire.

A reboot might not look like the old FLOSS Manuals at all, and that is fine. It might become a patchwork of small, self hosted sites and personal projects, all connected by a shared principles and links between us.

If that sounds interesting, watch this space. We will start sketching out some new protocols and may try a small pilot using Hugo. The aim is not to rebuild the past, but to let the old manuals evolve into something new, decentralised, remixable, and sustainable. At the same time it’s a chance to find out what other people in the community are up to now. How are they surviving and hopefully thriving?

Maybe it is time to adopt a manual, dust it off, and make it useful again.

This is actually already happening. For example, joachim heintz has created a version of the Csound manuals which is now is hosted externally. They used different tools to create it but is still listed as a FLOSS Manual - see Csound FLOSS Manual. Jaromil has adopted the Introduction to the Command Line manuals and hosted it on the Dyne website - see Dyne Terminal Manual new home

As always you can keep in touch with the FLOSS Manuals community on our mailing list. FLOSS Manuals discussion list

Or just get in touch with me directly at mick at flossmanuals.net