Before you distribute your code to millions of potential readers there are a few things you should do.
First, be sure to spell-check your document. Most utilities that you would use to write SGML have plug-ins to perform a spell check. If not, there's always the aspell program.
Second, get someone to review your documentation for comments and factual correctness. The documentation that is published by the LDP needs to be as factually correct as possible, as there are millions of Linux users that may be reading it. If you're part of a larger mailing list talking about the subject, ask others from the list to help you out.
Third, create a web site where you can distribute your documentation. This isn't required, but is helpful for people to find the original location of your document.
Using sgmltools, or really the nsgmls command, you can validate your .sgml code against the DTD to make sure there aren't any errors.
nsgmls -s HOWTO-HOWTO.sgml |
If there are no issues, you'll just get your command prompt back.
In order for an LDP document to be accepted by the LDP, it must be licensed to allow for free (as in beer) distribution and publishing. As an author, you may retain the copyright and add other restrictions (for example, you must approve any translations or derivative works). A sample license is available at http://www.linuxdoc.org/COPYRIGHT.html. If you choose to use the boilerplate copyright, simply copy it into your source code under a section called "Copyright and Licenses" or similar. Also include a copyright statement of your own (since you still own it). If you are a new maintainer for an already-existing HOWTO, you must include the previous copyright statements of the previous author(s) and the dates they maintained that document.
Once your LDP document has been reviewed by a few people and you took into account their comments, you can release your document to the LDP. Send an e-mail with the SGML source code as an attachment (you may gzip it if you like) to ldp-submit@lists.linuxdoc.org.
Be sure to include the name of your HOWTO in the subject line, and use the body to outline changes you've made and attach your HOWTO. This allows the maintainers to do their jobs faster, so you don't have to wait for your HOWTO to be updated on the LDP web site. If you don't hear anything in 7 calendar days, please follow up with an e-mail to make sure things are still in process.
This section contains notes on conventions that the LDP has agreed to in order to give all LDP documents a similar look and feel. You should keep these guides in mind when writing.