The SME Server is a Linux server distribution focused on simplicity, stability, reliability, and security. It is built using only components that have an extensive track record in these areas. The server is designed to be maintained by people with little or no technical background.

Communications Guidance

The Communications Group will therefore pursue the following goals, as time and resources permit:
    * Provide the information and support needed to help inexperienced users receive the benefits of using SME Server
    * Make the existence of this help as widely known, as easy to find, and as generally useful as possible, through marketing, web site design, and translation services.
    * Provide training materials and guidance to help less experienced users gain expertise and become more involved in the community as their time, interest, and abilities allow.

!! Provide the information and support needed to help inexperienced users receive the benefits of using SME Server
This is the primary goal of the Communications Group. A concerted effort will be made to focus, for this purpose, on the exact minimum information needed by the inexperienced user. More extensive information may be available, and should be easy to find, but the first-time SME installer should not need to deal with them before the need for this information becomes apparent. The main methods used to achieve this goal shall be:
    * The SME Server User's Guide
    * A set of introductory web pages - About SME, How to download, Burn to CD, Installing SME, etc.
    * New User's FAQs
    * A general discussion forum focused on beginning and inexperienced users

!! Make the existence of this help as widely known, as easy to find, and as generally useful as possible
Information is not very valuable if people do not know it exists, can't find it when they need it, or can't understand it when they do find it. Therefore, The Communications Group will work to:
    * Market and publicize the existence of SME Server, the community website, and the server documentation
    * Organize the community website so that the introductory information is found first, and the location of all the new user information is apparent
    * Provide this introductory information (or links to it) in every language for which sufficient active resources exist to translate it. An obvious method to change languages (flags in the menu bar, etc.) will be present on the home page and all introductory pages, and all these pages must be translated to a given language for a link to that language to be placed. The focus of this is the minimum information necessary to have an understanding of what SME is, how to get it installed, and how to configure it to work in the most common scenarios.

!! Provide training materials and guidance to help less experienced users gain expertise
Many, perhaps most, users will be happy to get SME installed and working, use the gateway and ibays, perhaps install a CMS, and do the occasional update. Of course, this is perfectly fine - it's what SME server is for. However, as they gain experience, some will want to learn more about what SME can do, or have questions about security or extensibility that only a deeper knowledge can answer. Some will want to help out in the community, or learn how to build and share contribs they have used.

The Communications Group will therefore work, as time and resources allow, to provide the following:
    * A forum for more experienced users where more difficult questions can be asked and answered. If possible the forum will be integrated with an email list engine such that either method may be used to participate in the dialog.
    * A set of FAQs for these users
    * An organized and searchable repository of How-to's, for such issues as hardware, useful linux commands, common customizations, etc.
    * An organized set of articles to 'walk' the user through the process of installing third-party software, rolling and testing rpms, GForge usage, etc.
•An applicable exposition of security issues as they affect SME Server

!!! Methods and Materials

SME Server and community documents must be available to all interested parties in a form they can use. Therefore, The following methods will be used to distribute these documents.

!! Core SME Server and community documents will be made available in plain text format.
•SME Server Release Notes
•SME Serve changelogs
•SME Server User's Guide
•Ruffdog's Contract with the Community
•This Constitution and ancillary documents
•Any general guidance, policies, procedures, volunteering, etc. documents as they are created

These documents will be made available in a location that can be reached without extensive gui navigation, such as an ftp repository (using the mirrors).

The SME Server Release Notes and the changelog, in plain text format, must be included in the release ISO of any new version of SME Server.

!! For distribution into the predominately gui-based computing environments worldwide, core documents will be available in .pdf format
•SME Server User's Guide
•The introductory web pages
•Any SME Marketing specific documents

It is not necessary for these documents to be available before the release of a new version of SME Server

!! For daily use, and point-of-presence of the SME community and its activities, all documents will be available on a website(s) and readable through a web browser. No compatibility with any particular browser is required – it is expected that standards-compliant technology will be used and that this will suffice for a majority of community members.

Within the guidelines stated above, A web site will be created and maintained by appropriate subteams. At a minimum the website:
     *  will allow users to find and install contribs, and participate in their testing
     *  will allow users to find and apply howtos and participate in their testing
     *  will clearly separate contribs and howtos, wherever they are stored 
     *  Provide documentation for every contrib, even if it's only “rpm -Uvh ...”
     *  Allow users to post content to the web site, whether through wiki or articles
     *  Allow users to link to documentation hosted on external sites
     *  Provide descriptions of how to participate in testing, documentation, dev, FAQs, website, etc.
     *  Provide sufficient forums in General-purpose, defined subject matter, and global languages

It is expected that the website will be built using a CMS portal that supports multiple domains and is maintainable by our Hosting Provider, such as Social MPN.