On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 08:41:21 -0400, "Michael P. Soulier" <msoul...@digitaltorque.ca> wrote: > On 28/10/11 Pieter Praet said: > > > When acquiring *any* type of technology (in the very broad sense of the > > word), you should either make an effort to educate yourself regarding > > available options, usage and maintenance, or reimburse someone to do it > > all for you. > > > > If you refuse to do either of those, you lose every right to complain, > > because most (if not all) problems you encounter will be the product of > > your own intentional ignorance. > > I'll say one thing regarding this, as I mostly agree. When it comes to > open source software, I do find the accompanying documentation often rather > lacking, especially in decent examples. And "use the source" doesn't cut it. > My time is not infinite. > > I often find that the first contribution that I can make to an open source > project is in documentation, because the authors are so often unwilling to do > it, or can't author decent docs to save their lives. >
True. This is part of educating yourself re available options (by which I mean implementations). It's *always* a matter of cost-effectiveness analysis. And I absolutely agree that for most FOSS projects, grokking the source is rather unlikely to have a positive ROI re time and effort, so additional motives (knowledge, fun, security, the ability to contribute) are required to make it worth your while. > Without documentation I don't blame anyone if they move on to software that > has it. > No sensible person would. > Cheers, > Mike Peace -- Pieter
