Who "owns" design documentation?

[Joe Sokohl <jsokohl -at- INTERACCESS -dot- COM>]

Hi, everybody!

I'm looking for advice/thoughts/philosophical diatribes on this subject:
Who manages software design documentation? Specifically, I'm in a
situation where we outsourced a process document (the software does this,
then it does this, and this is how it does what it does...). Now it's
morphing into the core of our application's design.

The product manager wants to be able to write changes to the design as
they occur--and intimates that she wants me "to pretty it up" on
occasion. My suggestion was
*  to define to doc along with her
*  create an info plan for the tech doc suite for the program
*  then define a content spec
*  _then_ to have her collect tech info & zap it to me electronically
*  I woul then organize, edit, & draft
*  she would _tech_-edit
*  I would publish electronically for all developers to use (Acrobat)
*  she would collect tech info (and here the cycle repeats)

I'm afraid the devel community wants to simply write things out (in very
conditional/exception-processing approach--if this, then that; if the
one, then the other) and pass off to me for a "quick edit."

Any suggestions on how to get a handle on this process? Judy Glick-Smith
had a great discussion of this type of subject at the STC conference, but
I'm looking for some more, specific thoughts....

Thanks!

joe

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