The FreeDOS Project

I'm trying to connect undergrad technical writing students with opportunities to gain experience.

I'd like to find open source projects that need help with documentation: writing the docs, editing the docs, converting the docs (like from latex to HTML, from nroff to markdown, etc), … things like that.

Please reply here!

*I may include these suggestions in an article

Feb 15 at 1:22pmWeb
Show threadDustin MitchellFeb 15
@freedosproject taskwarrior has some decent docs already but they suffer from being written long ago and being heavily patched. It also has manpages in troff that could use a conversion to a more writable format.
Show threadThe FreeDOS ProjectFeb 15
@djmitche Is this the correct link?
https://taskwarrior.org/
Taskwarrior

Show threadDustin MitchellFeb 15
@freedosproject yes, and https://github.com/GothenburgBitFactory/taskwarrior
GitHub - GothenburgBitFactory/taskwarrior: Taskwarrior - Command line Task Management

Taskwarrior - Command line Task Management. Contribute to GothenburgBitFactory/taskwarrior development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub
Show threadThe FreeDOS ProjectFeb 15
@djmitche Thanks!
Show threadpenguin42Feb 15
@freedosproject #libreoffice 's doc team starting point is https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Development
Show threadThe FreeDOS ProjectFeb 15
@penguin42 Thanks!
Show threadJabRefFeb 15

@freedosproject
We would appreciate some help with our user documentation as well
https://github.com/JabRef/user-documentation

For the most part, it's describing new features and or updating/clarifying existing functionality

GitHub - JabRef/user-documentation: User documentation of JabRef

User documentation of JabRef. Contribute to JabRef/user-documentation development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub
Show threadThe FreeDOS ProjectFeb 15
@jabref Thanks!
Show threadPaulFeb 15
@freedosproject You may want to have a look at what the @mdn team are doing over at https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/community.
Contribute to MDN

The MDN Web Docs site provides information about Open Web technologies including HTML, CSS, and APIs for both Web sites and progressive web apps.

MDN Web Docs
Show threadThe FreeDOS ProjectFeb 15
@plwt Thanks!
Show threadKevinFeb 15

@freedosproject alpinelinux is struggling with documentation and could use help.

https://alpinelinux.org

https://docs.alpinelinux.org

index | Alpine Linux

Alpine Linux

Show threadThe FreeDOS ProjectFeb 15
@ikke Thanks!
Show threadJeroen BatenFeb 15
@freedosproject also, the Ardour project at ardour.org, and the LibrePlan project at libreplan.dev. And probably thousands more!
Show threadThe FreeDOS ProjectFeb 15

@JeroenBaten Thanks!

I'm trying to help open source projects with their docs, while also helping tech writing students to get experience. It's a win-win! 👍

Show threadProfoundly NerdyFeb 15
@freedosproject Does the Gentoo Linux Wiki count? https://wiki.gentoo.org/ or perhaps more specifically the Gentoo Handbook https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Handbook:AMD64.
Gentoo Wiki

Show threadThe FreeDOS ProjectFeb 15
@profoundlynerdy Those are great suggestions, thanks!
Show threadJeremy MonatFeb 15
@freedosproject
@dr_greg_landrum is this documentation help of interest to the RDKit? https://www.rdkit.org/docs/index.html For example splitting https://www.rdkit.org/docs/GettingStartedInPython.html into a page per topic so search results would lead more immediately to the desired code?
The RDKit Documentation — The RDKit 2025.09.5 documentation

Show threadThe FreeDOS ProjectFeb 15
@jemonat @dr_greg_landrum
I think that sounds like a great project for an undergrad student!
Show threadGreg LandrumFeb 16
@freedosproject @jemonat if there’s a way to do that while still maintaining the full notebook for humans who want a tutorial, I’m all for it
Otherwise, the idea of having that tutorial be 15 separate docs is not especially appealing
Show threadGreg LandrumFeb 16
@freedosproject @jemonat unless, of course someone can point to a study that shows that technical/scientific documentation is more effective when split into small pieces
Show threadJeremy MonatFeb 16
@dr_greg_landrum @freedosproject That was just my first thought. Are there other documentation improvements you’d like? Would be a good project for a student interested in #chemistry or #cheminformatics.
Show threadThe FreeDOS ProjectFeb 17

@dr_greg_landrum @jemonat
DITA can do that, but that's kind of a big lift for a project like this.

Another, simpler way is to break up the content into pages— but not complete HTML pages, just the content that would go into <body>. Then you have a wrapper (PHP?) that displays them as individual pages … or another wrapper that includes everything at once.

Show threadGreg LandrumFeb 17
@freedosproject @jemonat I’m not sure this is feasible. We use Sphinx to produce the docs and there’s a fair amount of infrastructure in place to support that (for example, we run Python doctests across the docs to make sure they are still correct when the code changes)
Show threadGreg LandrumFeb 17
@freedosproject @jemonat I mis-spoke here: the getting started doc is one big RST file, not a notebook
Show threadPaolo AmorosoFeb 15
@freedosproject Is there a deadline for projects to express interest?
Show threadThe FreeDOS ProjectFeb 15

@amoroso
I'm always making connections for students— so from that perspective, keep 'em coming anytime.

But to get mentioned in the article, please reply by Friday.

Show threadAmin GirasolFeb 16

@freedosproject these are all technical tasks which assume a well-functioning community.

The students who are interested in the sociotechnical aspects of technical writing in a team setting may be interested in attempting to interact with the #Fujinet community. Everyone in the community understands the documentation is a shambles, but a handful of opinionated gatekeepers block actual progress.

Show threadThe FreeDOS ProjectFeb 16

@fluidlogic
Good to know. That may be the case for several projects* not just fujinet. What's the link for fujinet?

__
* For example, at FreeDOS we welcome contributors, but our doc infrastructure is difficult to contribute to since our wiki was spammed out of existence and we restarted it as a markdown process.

Show threadAmin GirasolFeb 16

@freedosproject https://fujinet.online/help-wanted/#documentation-help

Most of the discussion about Fujinet happens on the Discord: https://fujinet.online/help-wanted/#discord

Help Wanted: 4 Powerful Ways You Can Help – FujiNet

Show threadRegionales Retro-RechenzentrumFeb 16
@fluidlogic @freedosproject Discord … <sigh> it’d be cool if it’d be something non-tracking & free, not with long EULAs and tracking … that will tomorrow sell my data to a random AI company. It will keep some people on distance.
Show threadAmin GirasolFeb 16
@3rz @freedosproject I know. Another reason I bounced off.
Show threadRegionales Retro-RechenzentrumFeb 16
@fluidlogic @freedosproject And … https://blog.discourse.org/2025/11/the-death-of-community-memory/ - a chat is not documentation nor archive.
The Death of Community Memory

I recently spent forty minutes searching through Slack trying to find a technical decision — made eight months ago — about an app that 60% of my creative life depends on...I eventually gave up and just asked someone to explain it again, which they did, poorly, because they didn’t quite remember either.

Discourse
Show threadAmin GirasolFeb 16

@3rz @freedosproject yes, exactly.

Important decisions get made in casual conversations that disappear into the archive.

In the early 2000s I was a founder of a niche outdoors sports club. I set up a forum and a wiki. That was groundbreaking at the time.

Because the community was so small, a handful of us could periodically take interesting and informative forum threads and summarise them into wiki pages: discussions about locations, equipment, safety recommendations - all kinds of stuff. It was hugely valuable for people new to the sport.

Sadly that doesn't seem to have became a habit in pretty much any online community I've ever joined since, but I've kept up the habit at work. I'd take informative chat threads and turn them into wiki pages. I'd get the chat participants to review my summary, and often they'd make corrections or clarifications that helped all of us to understand the subject matter better.

Typically I'd be the only person doing that in the whole org. People recognised the value, but for whatever reason they didn't feel they had the authority to do the same. I loved doing it because it was quick and easy work, putting a bit of structure¹ onto factual sentences lifted from the chat thread.

1: https://diataxis.fr/

Diátaxis

Diátaxis is a widely-adopted, pragmatic and systematic approach to thinking about and creating documentation.

Show threadThe Medley Interlisp ProjectFeb 18

@freedosproject We would appreciate help with tasks such as converting OCRed scanned documentation PDFs to usable formats, possibly native to Interlisp. We can also discuss ideas in other areas.

The Medley Interlisp Project revives and modernizes the Interlisp development and system environment created at Xerox PARC between the 70s and 80s. Some of the original developers and users founded and contribute to the project.

https://interlisp.org

Cc: @amoroso

Medley Interlisp Project

The Medley Interlisp Project a retrofuturistic software system What did we leave behind on the path to developing today's computer systems? Could there be lessons for the future of computing hidden in the past? Enter the Medley software environment to explore these questions.

The Medley Interlisp Project