> -----Original Message----- > From: Bruce Williams [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Tuesday, October 01, 2002 10:56 AM > To: Tomcat Users List > Subject: RE: Documentation > > There is a big difference between writing policy and > administrative doc, > and writing product documentation on a product that has a > short release > cycle. I suppose you could have yearly releases with more polished > documentation, but the world is just moving faster than that > so lighten > up? :-) As I pointed out, there is no release cycle in the Apache mode, and there is no release cycle in open source. You release when you feel the product is ready for release, and no sooner. You're also under no threat of liability for providing something sub-standard, so there is no incentive to do so other than laziness or a desire to be the first with the "coolest" instead of second with the best. "No time" is an invalid and illogical argument...open source developers have nothing but time. Maybe I'm in the minority, but on the rare occasions I get to write applications, I'm much more satisfied taking an extra day or week and delivering 100% of the package instead of skipping that extra day or week and delivering 70%. It's a very simple matter to include "good documentation" as a criteria for judging when something should be released. Problem solved. The problem users of open source experience is that a large portion of open source developers typically use "it works, there's no docs, but what do they expect for free?" as a release criteria. Let's face it...many open source developers get a kick out of saying "my app had a certain feature before the app from some-big-company" instead of getting a kick out of "I delivered the best damn application package anyone has ever seen". "some-big-company" typically equals Microsoft, IBM, or Oracle. Regarding my own docs, I can assure you they're not "policy and administrative" docs. Quite the opposite, and in my opinion a recipe for building and deploying a production server, performing a security lock down procdure, or any number of other procedures and processes, is usually much more comprehensive than a document that says "this function does X and takes these 3 parameters as arguments". There's a difference between an explanatory document and a step-by-step guide for implementing a solution. I'm not knocking open source developers themselves, only their tendency to avoid providing comprehensive documentation at the same time as providing the application they developed. I honestly can't think of a single logical argument to support not releasing acceptable documentation. What good is spending your own time and effort for free to produce something for people to use if they don't know how to use it and you won't tell them? It makes much more sense to have as big a user-base as you can possibly have, and it gives you a much better return on your time and effort. One of the best ways to increase your user-base is not to decrease (or eliminate) the price, but to help more people understand how to use what you gave them or what is available to them. John -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
