> "Richard L. Hamilton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Some things aren't documented because the end user > isn't supposed to > > fool with them, or at any rate it may not be > supported if they do; or the > > developers wish to reserve the right to change or > remove them without > > In any case, software with undocumented features is > not ISO-9000 compliant ;-)
Without wading through the whole standard (which probably isn't free as in beer), I'm not sure where you got that. I was just looking at a summary (?) at http://www.praxiom.com/iso-9000-3.htm, and the one thing I saw that might fit your description is called "design output documents". I don't think that means all features have to appear in end-user documentation (like man pages). A developer or vendor only feature for which the vendor holds documentation (and accepts responsibility for its existence even if not for customers being informed of it or using it) is one thing; a feature undocumented even in that sense might well be viewed with legitimate suspicion as a potential "back door" (although there are also harmless if sometimes embarassing "easter eggs", but if they weren't embarassing or harmful but did appear in internal documentation, I don't see that they'd be any different than implementation-private features - sometimes in games and such, they're just harmless publicity). In the case of non-open software, that wouldn't necessarily mean such vendor-private features were open for public review; but insofar as OpenSolaris is indeed open (i.e. modulo the few remaining closed-bins), that's not an issue here, or wouldn't be if more "design output" documentation were available in addition to the source code. I'm not a lawyer, of course... This message posted from opensolaris.org _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list [email protected]
