Re: Styles for User Guides

[Sharon Burton-Hardin <sharonburton -at- EMAIL -dot- MSN -dot- COM>]

I do agree that people will ask for a manual that looks like someone else.
And that there is not ethical problem with creating one that looks like
someone else's. Happens all the time. I did it recently for a client. That
is called good ideas being used again and again.

But, I cannot, in good conscience, re-use that specific template again. The
client asked for and paid for that specific template with those tag names,
what ever they might have been. Reusing that specific template with those
tag names for another client would, in my opinion, be stealing. The client
paid for and, thus, owns the template. I can use the same look and feel and
create a new template for another client with some new tag names or formats
or xref formats and use it with a clear conscience. The stickler is how many
tag names make it unique, especially since I tend to use the same names in
my templates.

To be good, I would have to create a new one for a client and charge them
for it. At least that is my opinion. I think, as with the content, it is
what my client pays for. And if they pay for it, then they own it. The same
can be said with the source files for the book or help. They paid for the
creation effort and the content and it is theirs. Most contracts state that.
How would a template be different?

At least that is the ethical position for me. But then I have always want to
do the right thing and not be bad. Better to err on the side of caution.

sharon

Sharon Burton-Hardin
President of the Inland Empire chapter of the STC
www.iestc.org
Anthrobytes Consulting
Home of RoboNEWS(tm), the unofficial RoboHELP newsletter
www.anthrobytes.com
Check out www.WinHelp.net!
See www.sharonburton.com!

-----Original Message-----
From: John Posada <jposada01 -at- yahoo -dot- com>
To: Sharon Burton-Hardin <sharonburton -at- email -dot- msn -dot- com>;
TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU <TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU>
Date: Friday, 02 April, 1999 9:18 AM
Subject: Re: Styles for User Guides


|Hi, guys...just giving my brain a chance to think about
|something other than my User Manual...
|
|Hmmm...re-using a template...
|
|To be honest, this isn't a black and white issue.  I
|think alot of what can be allowed is based on how it
|got to that point.
|
|Let's say a client says "I want a manual produced from
|scratch, something that nobody has ever seen before,
|that will make my manual different than anything anyone
|has ever seen before.
|
|In this case, using their template later on would
|indeed be stealing. After all, part of the scope of the
|project was that they wanted it to be different and to
|make something later on similar would be removing the
|effectiveness they were paying for.
|
|OTOH, walk into a client with no documentation and when
|you start discussing template, they pull out a manual
|done by someone else for someone else and they say "I
|like the look and feel of this document. Produce a
|template that is different, but similar enough that a
|user in the same field would probably be familiar with
|its methodologies and therefore, feel comfortable."
|
|I might therefore create a document that uses a body at
|11.5pt Times, in-column sideheads with 14ptBld H2 and
|12ptBldItal H3, 6pt above, 3pt below, new H2 heading on
|the right facing page, 2 inch left margin, 1 inch right
|margin, has a black header and footer with white font,
|yada yada, yada.
|
|Do they also have the same right of ownership of this
|template as the first example?
|
|I thnk not. After all, their template was designed
|based on someone else and must fully expect that the
|same might be done with theirs.
|
|No rule in this business is absolute (except maybe no
|spelling errors in a resume, but I degress). Each
|situation must be based on the situation and your best
|effort at being ethical must be the guide.
|
|--- Sharon Burton-Hardin <sharonburton -at- email -dot- msn -dot- com>
|wrote:
|> While it may be perfectly legal to re-use a template
|> that a client paid you
|> to create, I think it is unethical as all get out.
|> And may be theft of
|> intellectual property. The client paid for the
|> template.
|>
|> For example, I taught Frame last month for 5 weeks.
|> In one of those classes,
|> a student who works in the aerospace industry said
|> that there is a large
|> market for templates in his industry. He would be
|> happy to bring me the
|> templates they use at R**. Then I could make a
|change
|> or 2 and then we could
|> sell them to other aerospace companies. I nearly had
|> a nervous breakdown
|> right there. My students' mouths all fell open.
|>
|> I explained calmly that the templates belonged to
|the
|> company and that would
|> be stealing. No, no, he assured me, they use the
|> templates all the time.
|> There was nothing wrong with it. I kept trying to
|get
|> across that these were
|> at least the intellectual property of R** and that I
|> couldn't do that. It
|> was unethical as all hell, at least.
|>
|> I thought about it all week and talked to friends in
|> and out of the
|> business. Everyone agreed that it could fall into
|> theft of intellectual
|> property. So if he brought me the templates the next
|> week, I was going to
|> have to refuse to touch the disk and make sure that
|I
|> had witnesses. I was
|> very nervous about it but he dropped the discussion
|> the following week.
|>
|=====================================================
|
|_________________________________________________________
|Do You Yahoo!?
|Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
|


 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=