Back on April our Community was invited to take part of the Open Source Survey 2017.
"The Open Source Survey is an open data project by GitHub and collaborators from academia, industry, and the broader open source community." Survey data available for download here: http://opensourcesurvey.org/2017/ This survey was designed by GitHub with valuable input from the research and open source communities. I copy and pasted the following findings about the importance of documentation: Documentation is highly valued, but often overlooked Documentation helps orient newcomers: how to use a project, how to contribute back, the terms of use and contribution, and the standards of conduct in a community. Improving that documentation is an impactful way to contribute back to open source. - Incomplete or outdated documentation is a pervasive problem, observed by 93% of respondents, yet 60% of contributors say they rarely or never contribute to documentation. *When you run into documentation issues, help a maintainer out and open a pull request that improves them.* - Many people participate in open source on the job, where confidence in the terms of use is critical. Unsurprisingly, *licenses are by far the most important type of documentation to both users and contributors:* 64% say an open source license is very important in deciding whether to use a project, and 67% say it is very important in deciding whether to contribute. - *Documentation helps create inclusive communities.* Documentation that clearly explains a project's processes, such as contributing guides and codes of conduct, is valued more by groups that are underrepresented in open source, like women. - Nearly a quarter of the open source community reads and writes English less than ‘very well.’ *When communicating on a project, use clear and accessible language for people who didn’t grow up speaking English, or read less-than-fluently.* Regards, -- Laura V. * I&D SomosAZUCAR.Org* “Solo la tecnología libre nos hará libres.” ~ L. Victoria Happy Learning! #LearningByDoing #Projects4good #IDesignATSugarLabs #WeCanDoBetter
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