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Subject:Re. Spurious secrecy? From:geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA Date:Wed, 27 Mar 1996 15:51:44 -0600
The discussion of "secrecy" in the context of documentation
interests me. If the information must remain secret, why
release it in the first place? User manuals strike me as
pretty much useless without the product they describe, and
if someone buys the product, they'll get the dox anyway.
Indeed, the oldest form of industrial espionage is to buy
the opponent's product and reverse-engineer it.
Where does the problem lie? Are we worried that someone
will file off our names on the dox and replace them with
their own? Writing is designed to be shared, and if you
know who you want to share it with, there's no problem.
Maybe the problem is that some of us aren't sure who we
want to share with?
I've phrased my argument as a tautology, so it doesn't
prove anything one way or the other. Perhaps some specific
examples would help focus this discussion?
--Geoff Hart @8^{)}
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Disclaimer: If I didn't commit it in print in one of our
reports, it don't represent FERIC's opinion.
