Open-Source Documentation: In Search of User-Driven, Just-in-Time Writing Erik Berglund Michael Priestley Linköping University IBM Toronto Lab S-581 83, Linköping, Canada Sweden
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[email protected] ABSTRACT Keywords Iterative development models allow developers to respond quickly Open source documentation, just-in-time, user-driven. to changing user requirements, but place increasing demands on writers who must handle increasing amounts of change with ever- 1. THE PROBLEM decreasing resources. In the software development world, one Over the years, the software industry has accepted that changing solution to this problem is open-source development: allowing the requirements are simply part of the software development process. users to set requirements and priorities by actually contributing to An allowance for client requirements change, even an expectation the development of the software. This results in just-in-time of change, is at the foundation of most software development software improvements that are explicitly user-driven, since they methodologies. The Rational Unified Process (RUP) illustrates are actually developed by users. this, and Extreme Programming (XP) exemplifies it. Taken to the In this article we will discuss how the open source model can be extreme, as it often is in open-source development, the extended to the development of documentation. In many open- functionality of the product may not be determined until the day it source projects, the role of writer has remained unchanged: is completed. documentation development remains a specialized activity, owned Continuous requirements change makes traditional methods of by a single writer or group of writers, who work as best they can software documentation difficult.