RE: Documenting open source software in product?

Subject: RE: Documenting open source software in product?
From: "Bill Swallow" <wswallow -at- nycap -dot- rr -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 10:41:55 -0400


If it ain't yours, it ain't yours. Documenting someone else's product
that is used in your product can lead to assumed responsibility on your
company's part to support that third-party software for your clients,
which you don't want to have on your shoulders. Even though it's
open-source, refer your users to that product's documentation.

If you're including 3rd party software within your own and shipping it,
you generally have to first get rights to do so (not sure how this works
with open source apps though) and then usually you have the app and docs
for that product private-labeled for your company's use (that is, the
product assumes your company's brand and not it's own). You still don't
support it 100%, but you do provide the documentation under your
deliverable's "umbrella".

(Can you tell I need more coffee?)

B I L L S W A L L O W
Information Design & Development Professional
tel/fax: 518.371.1867 wswallow -at- nycap -dot- rr -dot- com
List Owner: HATT, WWP-Users, InFrame
Co-Moderator: SingleSourcing-Mgmt
WebWorks Wizard Editor of InFrame Magazine

::: -----Original Message-----
::: I'm working on documenting a product which has a lot of
::: open source software in it. How have you
::: others handled this? Have you provided links to any
::: possible documentation available in the web
::: on that open source software? Or have you produced original
::: material on the software in question?




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References:
Documenting open source software in product?: From: mary.nurminen

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