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<div>
<p><span style="font-family: 'DejaVu Sans';">I think that it is
instructive to take a look at the commercial software world,
specifically Microsoft Outlook. </span><span
style="font-family: 'DejaVu Sans';" lang="en-US">Whether you
like Microsoft or not, it does believe that the availability
of documentation helps promote and sell its products.</span><span
style="font-family: 'DejaVu Sans';"> It doesn’t seem to think
that third party documentation hurts the official
documentation. If you go to Amazon and search for “Outlook
email” you get over 700 hits (if you search for only “Outlook”
you get over 100,000). It certainly benefits MS and its
customers to have so much documentation available. From a
marketing point of view, the presence of all this
documentation helps prove the “dominance” of Outlook in the
marketplace and it shows that many people think it is
something worth knowing about. For users, they can choose a
guide that meets their specific needs. They don’t have to use
documentation that they may find difficult to use or that they
do not understand.</span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'DejaVu Sans';">In this case, what
works for Microsoft would also work for free software. It’s
good for users to have different types and styles of
documentation to choose from. If someone searches for
“Thunderbird manual” and gets a list of ten to choose from,
she may see that Thunderbird is part of the ecosystem that
Scott mentioned. She may then decide to use Thunderbird
because there are more resources to use to help resolve
problems or answer questions. Once she starts using
Thunderbird, she may use the FM manual to learn how to perform
a task and then use the official documentation to understand
how to configure something. Next, she may tell a friend about
Thunderbird and that friend may use only the official docs and
Google to figure things out. It goes on and on. The
availability of documentation helps further the use of the
product and it helps people understand how to better use it.<br>
</span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'DejaVu Sans';">Finally, I have a
question of my own: Do people think that FM hurts other
documentation efforts by taking technical writers away from
working on the official documentation? I don't think that this
is true but I'd like to hear what others think about this.</span><br>
</p>
</div>
On 11/17/2010 07:08 AM, Scott Nesbitt wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:AANLkTi=Kg0U1uKg6b=h7xjfDY0g1B28iJBj6wBH0sG7h@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">This is something that Adam and I have been discussing
in a few emails, and now it's time to take the idea to the wider
list for comment.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Here's the background: last month, I did a presentation about
FLOSS Manuals at the Free Software Open Source Symposium. During
the presentation (and a couple of times during the day) people
asked me if FLOSS Manuals drives people away from the "official"
documentation. I try to explain that one of the goals of FLOSS
Manuals is to get people up and running with whatever technology
quickly and in a very friendly way. But FMs don't cover
everything -- FLOSS Manuals gets you going. If you want to delve
deep, deep into the software or technology, the official docs
are still there. That seems to get them even more interested.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>But that question showed something of a gap in perception,
IMO. In my mind, it's not FLOSS Manuals vs. the official
documentation or other docs/sources of information. There's not
such thing as too much documentation and no one source can be
THE source. FM doesn't try to be the last word in documentation.
It doesn't answer all the questions or have all the information.
The FM should (and usually does) point people to other sources
of documentation so they can get a deeper view.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>So, what are your thoughts on this? Does FLOSS Manuals hurt,
hinder, or put into the shade other documentation efforts? Or
are we one big ecosystem, living in something akin to symbiosis
(or commensalism)? Let's get some discussion going!</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I'm looking forward to your comments. Which, unfortunately, I
won't be able to read until this evening (Eastern time) :-)</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Scott</div>
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