The FLOSS Manuals (FM) is a non-profit foundation founded in 2006 by Adam Hyde and based in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. The foundation is focused on the creation of quality documentation about how to use

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, n ...

. Its web site is a

wiki A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pub ...

(previously using the

TWiki TWiki is a Perl-based structured wiki application, typically used to run a collaboration platform, knowledge or document management system, a knowledge base, or team portal. Users can create wiki pages using the TWiki Markup Language, and dev ...

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 GNU Free Documentation License (GNU FDL or simply GFDL) is a copyleft license for free documentation, designed by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for the GNU Project. It is similar to the GNU General Public License, giving readers th ...

, the material was relicensed to the GPL due to concerns about the limitations of the GFDL. Anyone can contribute to the material at FLOSS Manuals. Each manual has a maintainer – very much like the

Debian Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of De ...

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 The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaS ...

online, or indexed

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

. 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. It has also been financially supported by

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

and

NLnet The NLnet Foundation supports organizations and people that contribute to an open information society. It was influential in spreading the Internet throughout Europe in the 1980s. In 1997, the foundation sold off its commercial networking opera ...

. FLOSS Manuals also received a Transmediale Award for its work on Booki and has also been featured in the Texas Linux Fest 2010.

List of manuals

FLOSS Manuals has manuals for all of the following.

Popularity

Some manuals have been selected for inclusion on the

VALO-CD VALO-CD, a distribution of open-source software on a CD for Microsoft Windows, aims to spread knowledge and the use of open-source software. VALO-CD originates from Finland, and was originally available only in Finnish. Since version 7, an intern ...

, a collection of the best software for Windows.

References

External links

* (Requires

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior, of ...

)
Interview: Adam Hyde, FLOSS Manuals
* Adam Hyde: Free Manuals for free software. Talk at Wikimania 2007, Taipei
Abstract
{{FOSS Free software project foundations Software documentation