As described elsewhere, one of the primary intended results of the FreeSA project is a tutorial book that describes the entire process of constructing the FreeSA distribution, so that it's easier for other people to do the same sort of thing with different hardware. The goal is to have something kind of like Linux From Scratch, but with more explanatory text about, for example, what's going on when building a cross-toolchain; and more focused on the particular platform we are using.
Ideally, someone who is reasonably familiar with Linux should be able to pick up the FreeSA book, read it, and understand the entire process of setting up the system enough that none of it seems like black sorcery any longer -- without having to figure out any arcane build processes or read three dozen Makefiles or anything like that. Because Random really likes printed output, he's keen to have one of the output formats for the book be an actual book, nicely typeset and everything. Eric likes things to be accessible over the web, so he's more enthusiastic about HTML or XHTML as an output format.
Since we also want to automate the entire process of constructing a FreeSA system, as much as possible, it would be great if the source files for the book were in some sort of literate programming-style form that could be mechanically transformed into a set of scripts that actually do the work of constructing a FreeSA system. One important reason to automate the process is to make keeping the book up to date more feasable; it is important to lower the effort to test the combined build as various packages are updated over time.
And, of course, since we are lazy, we'd like it to be as easy as possible to write the actual book, with a source format that doesn't get in our way or require us to learn anything new.
Formerly, we had discussed a number of possible ways to achieve these goals. Nowadays, we are pretty firmly committed to using the litbuild system. Litbuild takes simple package and section description files and either transforms them into a readable document or executes an automated build from the instructions contained in the description files. Or, at least, that is the plan.