Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 14:10:09 -0700 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: Joe Kelsey <joe@zircon.seattle.wa.us> Cc: current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Last Words...(documentation) Message-ID: <3B7993B1.C09EA7C7@mindspring.com> References: <15224.6928.355296.565585@zircon.zircon.seattle.wa.us>
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Joe Kelsey wrote: > However, I have one last comment to make. TWO people have written to me > and said that the reason THEY write documentation in their "day" jobs is > that they get PAID for it. So, excuse me! I guess real programmers > only write documentation when they are PAID! Obviously, working on a > FREE product, you don't get paid so you don't document! After all, the > meaning is obvious from the code! There are tons of productization issues surrounding Open Source projects which involve work that peole will only do if the get PAID to do it. One of these, historically, has been the install process, and another the release engineering process (Jordan was PAID by Walnut Creek to do it, then was PAID by BSDI to do it, abd ...). The real question you need to answer is "what needs to be done to incentivize commercial organizations to PAY for the work to be done?". For documentation, I have suggested that FreeBSD find some way to leverage the situation where students are being PAID with their grades to do technical writing. For installation, I've suggested that sysintall not be the first user experience (and it seems that this has met with lukewarm, but not cold, reception the last time it was raised), to permit a company to be PAID for its distribution on the basis of it being a better first experience for the user. Likewise, Bill Paul is PAID to write network drivers, and many of us are PAID, one way or the other, to hack on the code that the ones PAYING us want hacked on... Note that this is not limited to commercial organizations: DARPA is currently PAYING to improve FreeBSD security... -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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