Lack of informative files in FreeBSD svn

[Mehmet Erol Sanliturk]

Dears All ,

When the FreeBSD svn is studied , one of the most important problems seems
to be missing ReadMe or other informative files in many directories .

The assumption at present seems to be that such a study will ALWAYS be
performed by persons who know the FreeBSD very well .

This structure is , in my opinion , an important obstacle in front of the
persons wishing to study and understand the FreeBSD structure very well and
then try to make contributions .


As an example , consider

https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/user/

directory .

In that directory , there are work in progress projects ( I assume like
that ) .
There is a guidelines text , but not a ReadMe file or any other named file
to list names and their project subjects .

Also there is no any html file which contains links to related off site
pages such as FreeBSD wiki .

And also no one of the directories contain a ReadMe file about the tasks
studied .


It may be said that , no one of the directory is related to the general
public other than its owner .

Such an idea is very contrary to ideas specified in status reports and open
projects pages and in some other messages that saying there is an important
man power requirement .

Another disadvantage is that when a person wishes to make an improvement
she/he is not able to study existing works and if possible to join to such
groups . There remains a possibility , mostly , to start from scratch in
isolation.

Many points are documented in FreeBSD wiki . In the svn , I did not see any
html file that presents links to such pages ( there may exist some but
seems that they are very rare ) .


I am sorry to be very negative , but I think there is no any other choice
to explain above ideas .

For example , I am studying

https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/contrib/expat/

In it , there is a directory

https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/contrib/expat/tests/

it contains

https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/contrib/expat/tests/README.txt?view=markup

but it does not contain any link to information how to use new kyua testing
facility for these tests .

It may be said that "You should know !" , but my problem is "How ?" .


I do NOT expect that all of the directories can be populated with such
informative files immediately . In some very distant places , there may be
many informative pages , but how I can know where they are . It may be said
"Search " , but "What ?" .


My suggestion is to start such a convention with the goal that such
informative files will attract  more people to make contributions and also
will be a good documentation about FreeBSD maintenance .


Thank you very much .

Mehmet Erol Sanliturk