Thanks for the enjoyable discussion. Bob and I will meet in about 2 weeks and future documentation plans will be a topic of discussion.
Some random thoughts follow. Free documentation... I charge for documentation I develop, just like I charge for software I develop. I don't think this is unreasonable. If you sincerely believe that OSG documentation should be free, contract with Bob and I and pay us to write it. Then it's yours, and you can give it away free, just like CGSD/Andes did with the Quick Start Guide. For those of you wishing there was more documentation available, rest assured Bob and I do not intend to stop where we are. However, know that OSG is large, and documenting all of it will take time. I think we've made good progress so far. Without contracts to develop documentation, Bob and I squeeze in documentation development around our (better paying) contractual software development obligations. This environment prohibits any large-scale dedicated documentation projects, and means that documentation will have to come out in small bits and pieces. The idea of writing separate whitepapers on various topics is quite appealing. I see two different approaches here: 1) Bob and I write them all, release them as they are completed, and after we reach some critical mass, we assemble them into the "OSG Programming Guide" and release that as a book. 2) Members of the OSG community all write articles on various aspects of OSG and submit them to Bob and I. We edit and assemble them and release the "OSG Gems" book. So I really see those as two different projects. Both seem doable, but the "Gems" book implicitly assumes community contribution, and past experience indicates the odds for this happening are quite small. (To be fair, having Bob and I write whitepapers implicitly assumes we'll have time to do it -- I think we will, but the papers might not appear as fast as we'd all like.) However, I like the idea of a community-written "OSG Gems" book, and I don't want to underestimate the community's willingness to contribute. So, I'll give this some thought, look into other Gems-style books' business models, and see if I can find a way to make this work (time-wise, as an editor). Initial thought: rather than "here's how to use some feature in OSG" type of articles, it might be better to have "here's how I did this really cool thing using OSG" or "here's how my company is using OSG", if you know what I mean. I think this is more in line with other Gems books I've read. Paul Martz Skew Matrix Software LLC http://www.skew-matrix.com 303 859 9466 _______________________________________________ osg-users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
