From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1762356AbdEAPon (ORCPT ); Mon, 1 May 2017 11:44:43 -0400 Received: from ms.lwn.net ([45.79.88.28]:55486 "EHLO ms.lwn.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754108AbdEAPol (ORCPT ); Mon, 1 May 2017 11:44:41 -0400 Date: Mon, 1 May 2017 09:24:40 -0600 From: Jonathan Corbet To: Martin Kepplinger Cc: mchehab@kernel.org, akpm@linux-foundation.org, torvalds@linux-foundation.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [PATCH] README: Find more sane first words we have to say about Linux Message-ID: <20170501092440.58c28368@lwn.net> In-Reply-To: <20170430201135.11603-1-martink@posteo.de> References: <20170430201135.11603-1-martink@posteo.de> Organization: LWN.net MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Sun, 30 Apr 2017 22:11:35 +0200 Martin Kepplinger wrote: > Imagine you're completely new to Linux, just real quick, ok? What do you do? > Wouldn't having a look at README be under first if no *the* first thing? > Ah there it is: README. "Linux kernel". nice! So what's that? > "This file was moved to ...... Please notice that there are several....". > Wtf!? Why? Can't they just tell me what's going on like a normal person? So I don't doubt we could put something better there, but can we think for a moment about who the audience is here? If you're "completely new to Linux", will you really start by jumping into the kernel source tree? Somehow I'm not quite convinced... It seems to me that the README file should be aimed at developers who know what the kernel is but are not yet familiar with the process of configuring and building it. Thanks, jon