Date: Tue, 2 May 2000 16:36:41 -0700 From: "Sean Kelly" <kelly@ad1440.net> To: <doc@FreeBSD.ORG> Cc: <jim@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Credit where it's due Message-ID: <000001bfb49e$f2a33d40$24d39580@jpl.nasa.gov>
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Dear -doc'ers: I've trusted and ran FreeBSD for years now, and although I can't contribute much back financially, I've written a couple chapters for the handbook to help clear my karmic debt. I've looked over Jim Mock's restructuring of my printing chapter, and I certainly appreciate what he's done. As an ex-professional writer and BS-degree holder in Technical Communication, I know the value of outside editing, and I think he's done a nice job. However, I maintain that I'm the *author* of that document. Yet nowhere is my name mentioned that I wrote that text. And most of the text is unchanged! I realize it sounds petty, but having my name on that chapter was quite valuable to me. When applying for new contract writing jobs, I refer people to that chapter via its URL. I've received a lot of kudos for it (before it was restructured and updated), and I think it's an accurate reflection of my skills as a writer. So, I want to know: is this the new policy for documentation submitted to the FreeBSD project? Whoever last edits it gets complete credit? If so, why isn't it being applied uniformly? I refer you to chapter 7, where Jim Mock has also restructured and edited text, yet gave credit to Jake Hamby as the author. If it isn't the new policy, then what is? Should we say there's an implicit BSD license applied to material submitted? For example, do we want adomonitions such as "This documentation contains text written by Joe Blow" appearing in our preface? Clearly, we go out of our way to give credit to the individual software engineers developing FreeBSD (see handbook Appendix D). And the source code lists individual contributors as well, so there is precedent for what I'm asking. I'm not trying to inhibit Jim Mock's improvements to our handbook (and I do mean *our* as I feel a distinct part of the collective ownership of this text), but I also feel that credit should be given where it's due. Comments? Thanks. --Sean To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message
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