Timothy Murphy wrote at about 13:30:16 +0000 on Tuesday, March 8, 2011: > hans...@gmail.com wrote: > > > if a user takes the > > attitude that a program "should have" well-written documentation > > designed for non-technical users to understand, and any program that > > doesn't is somehow deficient in his eyes, then perhaps he would be > > better served as a paying customer of a company he then has the right > > to complain to. > > I completely disagree. > Any program offered to the public should be properly documented. > This has nothing to do with open source. >
No program - open source or commercial - *need* to be documented. However, presence and quality of documentation will determine the success of the program in the marketplace. Software writers have the freedom to decide what level of documentation they have the resources to provide or makes commercial or personal sense. Similarly, software buyers and users will use the presence and quality of documentation as one among several factors in choosing among alternative software products. The only difference perhaps is that for commercial products if the software description and/or license claims to provide documentation then the user may perhaps have a legal claim for such service. If not, the user may have a economic leverage in implicitly or explicitly threatening to withhold future purchases if the quality of documentation is lacking. For open source, the market still works, and all other things being equal, the consumer will tend to choose the better documented product. However, the user has no leverage other than perhaps personal suasion and appealing to the pride of the software writer. In the specific case of BackupPC, I personal would prefer that the author (Craig) focus his time on developing the next version since currently he is the only developer. If other users want documentation, then nothing is stopping them from contributing rather than complaining. That being said, the documentation for BackupPC is pretty good even if not perfect. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ What You Don't Know About Data Connectivity CAN Hurt You This paper provides an overview of data connectivity, details its effect on application quality, and explores various alternative solutions. http://p.sf.net/sfu/progress-d2d _______________________________________________ BackupPC-users mailing list BackupPC-users@lists.sourceforge.net List: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users Wiki: http://backuppc.wiki.sourceforge.net Project: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/