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Re: Why Tech-Writers Should Know About Open Source Technologies
Subject:Re: Why Tech-Writers Should Know About Open Source Technologies From:Sean Wheller <sean -at- inwords -dot- co -dot- za> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Thu, 15 Sep 2005 18:58:05 +0200
On Thursday 15 September 2005 18:44, Doug Grossman wrote:
> I've never had to spend any time installing Microsoft Office. I work for a
> software company, and of course they take care of all of those
> installations. I've also never had to contact Microsoft technical support
> (for business purposes). We have very professional and expert help desk
> support for anything like that.
Considering the Subject, Doug has made a very valid point.
The first thing technical writers should know about Open Source Technologies
is that you will be expected to be able to do things by yourself and use tech
support as a final resort. But nobody is hiding this fact and technical
writers in the open source world happily accept it. Just see this snip from
the GNU/GPL
~
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
~
Yes, open source means you must be prepared to support yourself. What most
people think is that they should, no are entitled, to get the software free
(as in free beer) and the world owes it to them to fix it when it won't work.
That's a fundamental mind shift for most tech writers.
--
Sean Wheller
Technical Author
sean -at- inwords -dot- co -dot- za
084-854-9408 http://www.inwords.co.za
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Registered Linux User #375355 http://wenzani.blogspot.com/
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