http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Open-Source A listing of the most recently indexed works about Open Source in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Open-Source http://tc.eserver.org/35831.html http://tc.eserver.org/35831.html Writers suggest people maintain or improve skills – or develop new skills – in some open-source type project where there is no pay, but plenty of opportunity to learn and, well, practice. This post is for sharing a few of those places of practice. http://tc.eserver.org/35782.html http://tc.eserver.org/35782.html A report of a presentation by Dru Lavigne at FSOSS 2009 that discussed how to create and sustain a writing career by writing about Open Source. http://tc.eserver.org/35707.html http://tc.eserver.org/35707.html Listen up open source developers, if you want your project to succeed you’re going to have to do more than write great code; you’re going to have to document it, teach new users how it works and provide real-world examples of what you can do with it. That’s the message from Jacob Kaplan-Moss, one of the creators of Django, a very successful open source, Python-based web framework. At least some Django’s success can be attributed to its thorough documentation which is not just reference materials, but also includes tutorials, topical guides and even snippets of design philosophy. http://tc.eserver.org/35625.html http://tc.eserver.org/35625.html Janet Swisher, who’s worked in technical communication since 1999, is an Information Developer for a medium-sized software company. Her specialist areas include online help, tutorials, API documentation and programmer guides. My “techie” cred is that she “can read code well enough to avoid asking obvious questions, and write code well enough to be dangerous.” http://tc.eserver.org/35617.html http://tc.eserver.org/35617.html Collaboration happens when multiple people work simultaneously towards a common goal. Collaboration software are tools which try to make working together easier and more productive. There are hundreds of methodologies and approaches out there to collaboration. We want to bring the focus on one particular dimension: open vs. structured collaboration. http://tc.eserver.org/35619.html http://tc.eserver.org/35619.html XMLmind DITA Converter (ditac for short) allows to convert the most complex DITA 1.1 documents to production-quality XHTML 1.0, XHTML 1.1, HTML 4.1, JavaTM Help, HTML Help, Eclipse Help, PDF, PostScript®, RTF (can be opened in Word 2000+), WordprocessingML (can be opened in Word 2003+), Office Open XML (.docx, can be opened in Word 2007+), OpenOffice (.odt, can be opened in OpenOffice.org 2+). http://tc.eserver.org/35565.html http://tc.eserver.org/35565.html As discussed recently, many people use PowerPoint to design posters, an act that borders on criminal. PowerPoint was designed for multiple projected images with minimal text, not one large image with complex text and graphics. People use PowerPoint because it’s the only thing remotely resembling a graphics software that people are familiar with. Microsoft Office simply doesn’t have a good, high end graphics component. Publisher comes close. OpenOffice does have a graphics component, simply called Draw. If you are not willing to shell out the big bucks generally required of a professional graphics software package, Draw has several features in its favour. http://tc.eserver.org/35513.html http://tc.eserver.org/35513.html I don’t intend to give a complete project list. I just chose some projects that might be interesting enough to people from localization industry based on two criteria: 1. The features are useful for language service providers (LSP). 2. The development status is Stable or Mature. In other words, it is ready for real production use from the view of development cycle. http://tc.eserver.org/35470.html http://tc.eserver.org/35470.html We are all going to have to collaborate like never before. Everyone should select at least one area of interest and specialize as best they can. Then we will need to start meeting and sharing information. Immediately. There are several ways to do this, I believe. http://tc.eserver.org/35288.html http://tc.eserver.org/35288.html What issues and legalities do we as Technical Communicators or Wiki Administrators need to be aware of as we move towards collaborative authoring projects and so forth, especially when documenting open source software? http://tc.eserver.org/35220.html http://tc.eserver.org/35220.html For companies that are struggling in the current times because of the economic slowdown, an option that might not compromise on product quality is to switch to open-source software. In this article, I will talk about open-source publishing tools for the writing community. http://tc.eserver.org/35035.html http://tc.eserver.org/35035.html There's only one thing you can generalize: open source is a specific kind of license. And discussions about which license is better are rather academic. What you'd want to decide on is what your software should do, if and how you want to customize it, and how easy it is to get support when you need it. That means doing your homework, and finding out the real story: you'll certainly want to know what's behind the facade. And that's something that applies to software under any license. http://tc.eserver.org/34749.html http://tc.eserver.org/34749.html OSCOM is the international association connecting users and developers of Open Source Content Management solutions. OSCOM organizes events, promotes standards and undertakes projects to further the state of the art of Open Source Content Management. OSCOM promotes Open Source Content Management solutions as powerful, affordable and flexible replacements for proprietary products. http://tc.eserver.org/34579.html http://tc.eserver.org/34579.html In the content management system I currently use, I’ve noticed no less than nine metaphors, which are meant serve as organizing principles, but they don’t. Granted, the particular tool I use isn’t really meant for gobs and gobs of editorial work, but nonetheless its organization and structure were likely created by a developer within arm’s reach of a bottle of tequila. http://tc.eserver.org/34337.html http://tc.eserver.org/34337.html Given how hard it is for students (and their programs) to afford the expensive tools in our profession, I thought it might help to pass along these alternatives to commercial products. I think anyone breaking into the field (or a new type of tool) would do very well to train up on these open source tools and create portfolio pieces with them. http://tc.eserver.org/34104.html http://tc.eserver.org/34104.html In this report, we take a look at four different open source Content Management Systems—WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and Plone—and rate them on a variety of criteria, including system flexibility, features, ease of use and the availability of support. We chose these systems because they’re the most popular four in the nonprofit sector today, according to our analysis (see Appendix C for more details on our market analysis). We also dig a little deeper into what open source is all about, and how a CMS can help streamline processes. We even take a look at some vendor-provided systems, along with a few other open source ones, in case you don’t find what you’re looking for among the four original choices. http://tc.eserver.org/34024.html http://tc.eserver.org/34024.html Although I love using the proprietary software that I’ve mentioned in the first sentence, I enjoy using open source software as well since some of them are actually better than the paid software in some respects. http://tc.eserver.org/33883.html http://tc.eserver.org/33883.html Openness is a faster route to better work. There are lots of ways of doing it, but I do think that as much as they pretend pure openness, successful OS projects all have hierarchy. http://tc.eserver.org/33755.html http://tc.eserver.org/33755.html Documentation is one area in which free/libre/open source software (FLOSS) is weakest. A project called FLOSS Manuals is trying to remedy this situation. The idea behind project is to create quality, free documentation for free software. http://tc.eserver.org/33726.html http://tc.eserver.org/33726.html I commented that many tech writers aren't interested in doing more tech writing in their spare time, but might be interested if doing so can help them professionally. In particular, folks coming into the field, either out of school or as career changers, need writing samples for their portfolio to show to prospective employers. http://tc.eserver.org/33622.html http://tc.eserver.org/33622.html This paper traces the history of open content technologies in an effort to understand the nature and significance of intelligent content. What is illustrated is that a common thread runs through SGML, HTML, XML, Web 2.0, the Semantic Web, DITA, and OOXML and that the evolution of open content technologies has enabled the emergence of intelligent content and with it a new form of organizational agility. This whitepaper has been prepared as a corollary to the presentation “Content Fusion: There’s a Piece of Data Lodged in my Document” at Intelligent Content 2009, Palm Springs CA, January 29-30, 2009. http://tc.eserver.org/33396.html http://tc.eserver.org/33396.html Offers a detailed look at Eclipse—an open-source integrated development environment—and also discusses why it is becoming increasingly important to technical communicators in the software industry. http://tc.eserver.org/33374.html http://tc.eserver.org/33374.html Open source delivers on the basics. The move to Plone delivered on the basic value proposition of open source: we got a very sturdy platform that worked well for our editors and didn't have to pay a dime in license fees. http://tc.eserver.org/33283.html http://tc.eserver.org/33283.html This whole category of software desperately needs to be redesigned with writers, editors, designers, and site owners in mind. Here are my recommendations to the folks writing open source content management systems. http://tc.eserver.org/33217.html http://tc.eserver.org/33217.html Open source content management systems (CMS) are particularly attractive to the nonprofit community because of their cost-efficiency, but what do these systems actually do? And what are the differences between the most common CMSs? We’ll compare Joomla, Drupal, and Plone for typical nonprofit needs. http://tc.eserver.org/33218.html http://tc.eserver.org/33218.html Although Gartner says software licensing for basic content services can cost less than US$100 per user for large volume deals, requirements for extra functions will increase the initial software costs if content management components are not included. How do you set aside enough money to solve the initial ECM pain points and create a strategy for the future? We asked the experts for some ideas. http://tc.eserver.org/33219.html http://tc.eserver.org/33219.html Is today's OpenOffice good enough for the enterprise? For most jobs—word processing, presentations or spreadsheets—the answer is yes. Compatibility with Microsoft Office isn't a problem unless sophisticated macros are involved. Interoperability, the greatest hurdle to conquer on the way to adoption, is almost a nonissue. OpenOffice even offers features missing in Microsoft Office, like PDF or Flash data exports. http://tc.eserver.org/32783.html http://tc.eserver.org/32783.html The detailed notes for the presentation on creating quality content with Open Source tools that was given at DocTrain East 2008 (Oct. 31, 2008). http://tc.eserver.org/32652.html http://tc.eserver.org/32652.html Django is an open-source Web framework, written in Python, that allows you to easily and rapidly develop interactive, data-centric web applications. It came into being when two Web developers—Adrian Holovaty and Simon Willison—in Kansas, after moving their newspaper’s website from PHP to Python, found themselves repeatedly solving similar problems. They decided to extract the common functionality and released the resulting framework in 2005. http://tc.eserver.org/32631.html http://tc.eserver.org/32631.html First and foremost, Microsoft Word is a solid piece of software, and the 2007 version is untouchable at present. It pretty much sets the standard. It's also in no way evil in and of itself. That said, it's unfortunately not free, so here are some alternatives that are. http://tc.eserver.org/32600.html http://tc.eserver.org/32600.html Is Open Source better? It's not a black and white question; the answer will depend on your needs and circumstances. Still, there are some very good things to be said for supporting Open Source and Open Standards. Here's a list of the top reasons why we prefer Open Standards and Open Source development. http://tc.eserver.org/32605.html http://tc.eserver.org/32605.html The CMS market really took wing with the liftoff of the LAMP stack and the growth of a supportive development community. Suddenly it seemed everyone was producing LAMP-based CMSes under Open Source licenses. http://tc.eserver.org/32609.html http://tc.eserver.org/32609.html A quick look at ten Open Source Content Management Systems which are beginning to find their way inside Enterprise IT Departments. http://tc.eserver.org/32536.html http://tc.eserver.org/32536.html Structural differences among different resource formats impede efforts to develop a learning community. With OSS, education issues/critique include media, medium, and message. OSS complicates framework issues. http://tc.eserver.org/32440.html http://tc.eserver.org/32440.html I find choosing a CMS incredibly difficult, and evaluating them is very time consuming and often frustrating. There are hundreds of options, one worse than the other. To date I have never come across a CMS that doesn’t have serious flaws. Even if a CMS looks good at a glance, once you start digging deeper you will always encounter problems with usability, accessibility, and front-end code. http://tc.eserver.org/32373.html http://tc.eserver.org/32373.html Content Management System (CMS) software tools give even the smallest business the chance to have a first-rate, interactive web presence. Packed with powerful features, and easily extended with add-on modules, CMS tools reduce web site development time and costs while providing interactivity, distributed responsibility, security, convenience and significant cost savings. http://tc.eserver.org/32300.html http://tc.eserver.org/32300.html A review of recent developments in electronic publishing, with a focus on Open Access (OA) is provided. It describes the two main types of OA, i.e. the `gold' OA journal route and the `green' repository route, highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of the two, and the reactions of the publishing industry to these developments. Quality, cost and copyright issues are explored, as well as some of the business models of OA. It is noted that whilst so far there is no evidence that a shift to OA will lead to libraries cancelling subscriptions to toll-access journals, this may happen in the future, and that despite the apparently compelling reasons for authors to move to OA, so far few have shown themselves willing to do so. Conclusions about the future of scholarly publications are drawn. http://tc.eserver.org/32245.html http://tc.eserver.org/32245.html Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature on the internet. Making it available free of charge and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. Removing the barriers to serious research. http://tc.eserver.org/32027.html http://tc.eserver.org/32027.html Crowdsourcing is an online, distributed problem-solving and production model that has emerged in recent years. Notable examples of the model include Threadless, iStockphoto, InnoCentive, the Goldcorp Challenge, and user-generated advertising contests. This article provides an introduction to crowdsourcing, both its theoretical grounding and exemplar cases, taking care to distinguish crowdsourcing from open source production. This article also explores the possibilities for the model, its potential to exploit a crowd of innovators, and its potential for use beyond forprofit sectors. Finally, this article proposes an agenda for research into crowdsourcing. http://tc.eserver.org/31242.html http://tc.eserver.org/31242.html Unfortunately, the movement to use open educational resources in higher education hasn’t yet realized the full impact that its founders anticipated. Open content is still in its infancy and faces some technical and cultural challenges that affect its widespread adoption. http://tc.eserver.org/31112.html http://tc.eserver.org/31112.html There's a lot of great free and Open Source (FOSS) software out there. But one area in which it's lacking is professional-level help authoring tools. In 2005, Linux.com published an article titled "FOSS help authoring tools falter". And not much seems to have changed in the intervening years. http://tc.eserver.org/31085.html http://tc.eserver.org/31085.html Although it claims to adhere to user-centered design principles of participatory design and democratized technology, open-source software often fails to effectively address the usability needs of typical software users. In many cases, it embodies a system-centered design approach facilitated by the efforts of developer-users. In addition to the existing participation in open-source projects in the classroom, technical communicators should actively critique open-source software and promote user-centered design principles in open-source software projects. http://tc.eserver.org/30871.html http://tc.eserver.org/30871.html Open source is a software licensing philosophy which believes the human readable code source of a software should be available for the public to freely install, modify, or redistribute. The term 'open source' can also refer to the community and development practices of thousands of free/libre/open source software (FLOSS) projects who subscribe to this philosophy and license their software under one of the many available software licenses. http://tc.eserver.org/29523.html http://tc.eserver.org/29523.html A presentation introducting how to support technical documentation teams with open-source tools. http://tc.eserver.org/29459.html http://tc.eserver.org/29459.html A glossary of various categories of software that are often mentioned in discussions of free software. http://tc.eserver.org/29405.html http://tc.eserver.org/29405.html Open source software development is not just about providing the source code for your application. It is much more about building a community around a shared project. That takes time. I think the biggest myth about open source software is that you say 'hey, I'm open source now' and suddenly thousands of qualified people give up nights and weekends to work on your code. http://tc.eserver.org/29190.html http://tc.eserver.org/29190.html Open source is a licensing model where the software and the source code are distributed without requiring licensing fees. http://tc.eserver.org/28368.html http://tc.eserver.org/28368.html This article takes a look at some of the most successful free and open-source products available for technical communicators and their clients. http://tc.eserver.org/28127.html http://tc.eserver.org/28127.html As open-source development options proliferate, CIOs are finding ways to make it work for their organizations. http://tc.eserver.org/28124.html http://tc.eserver.org/28124.html Collaborative technologies are supplanting traditional channels for product tech support. http://tc.eserver.org/28039.html http://tc.eserver.org/28039.html In this series, follow along as the IBM Internet Technology Group team designs, develops, and deploys a closed community Web site using a suite of software that is freely available. The open source community provides various tools that, when plugged together, begin to create a useful development and production environment for complex Web applications. Using these tools as a foundation, we provide a methodology and set of enhancements to help you simplify the production process. Although customization is still necessary, this series shows you the tools and techniques to get relatively complicated Web sites up and running quickly using open source tools, including Drupal, MySQL, PHP, Apache, and Eclipse technologies. In this first article, you'll compare our approach with other software tools available and explore the enhancements we made. http://tc.eserver.org/28038.html http://tc.eserver.org/28038.html In this series, you follow along as the IBM Internet Technology Group designs, develops, and deploys a closed community Web site using a suite of software that is freely available. Most of this series focuses on the actual implementation of the Web site, but this second article is a bit more generic. Read it to explore our design process, which can help you to create user experiences for applications, other interfaces, or Web sites. Part 1 discusses the team's requirements, compares several open source content management systems, and provides the rationale for choosing Drupal. http://tc.eserver.org/27884.html http://tc.eserver.org/27884.html The index can often be the most heavily used 'chapter' in any publication and helping the user find an answer is the key to fulfilling the technical document's mission, justifying the effort and expense for its creation. Yet, indexing facilities in open source packages for document creation remains largely unexplored, offering a marvelous opportunity to do it right! This article provides a generic specification (with reasons) to open source developers for creating useful indexing facilities in packages such as OpenOffice and Scribus. It also informs writers about what to look for and what to ask for in any indexing tool. Finally, the article demonstrates the need for software developers to work closely with practitioners and users. http://tc.eserver.org/27452.html http://tc.eserver.org/27452.html Therefore, the major difference in worldview between open source advocates and proprietary software license advocates is explainable as a differing opinion on the correct value of the volatility of maintenance and upgrade pricing. People who believe that the pricing on maintenance is stable and unlikely to change see greater intrinsic value in the software. People who fear that the pricing is subject to large fluctuations see no intrinsic value in the up-front license; stripped of the options, the license value approaches $0. http://tc.eserver.org/27155.html http://tc.eserver.org/27155.html It is probably more true that open source is helping the lone coder find a niche or their own market share. There are plenty of them and more are appearing everyday. With potential clients looking for specialists in content management software like Drupal, Joomla, Mambo, Typo3 and a gang of newcomers finding a niche is becoming increasingly easier. http://tc.eserver.org/26740.html http://tc.eserver.org/26740.html Open source software is big news right now. We've heard from big-name corporations who support it and oppose it. A number of high-profile intellectual property battles concern it. You probably know an open source zealot who's spent some time extolling its virtues. Open source software is a good thing, and has an important place in the tech sector. Closed source software also has its place, and the industry will benefit most from cooperation between the two. http://tc.eserver.org/26497.html http://tc.eserver.org/26497.html Open source software content management systems (CMS) offer affordability, flexibility, and in many cases outstanding performance. http://tc.eserver.org/25906.html http://tc.eserver.org/25906.html Can you trust the leading open-source database engines, PostgreSQL and MySQL, to deliver the performance and features that the Oracles, SQL Servers, and DB2s of the world do? Not just yet, but they could offer enough to meet your needs. Find out how they stack up against each other, as well as against the commercial alternatives. http://tc.eserver.org/25858.html http://tc.eserver.org/25858.html This paper contributes to the literature on Open Source (OS) software by providing empirical evidence on the incentives of firms that engage in OS activities. Data collected by a survey conducted on 146 Italian companies supplying OS solutions (Open Source firms) show that (surprisingly) intrinsic, community–based incentives do play a role but are not, in general, put into practise. We investigate this discrepancy between attitudes and behaviours and single out groups of firms adopting more consistent behaviours. Our results are in line with the literature on business models of the firms that enter the Open Source field. http://tc.eserver.org/25854.html http://tc.eserver.org/25854.html Although hierarchies and markets (i.e., autonomy) have been subject to extensive study, heterarchies represent different modalities of organizing that have been little researched. Drawing on complexity theory and the main features of complex evolving systems (CES), this paper sets out to remedy this imbalance by showing that heterarchies feature highly decentralized and relatively stable interactions which are coordinated through an emergent process of parametric adaptation. Implications in terms of learning are discussed casting a new light on the delicate issue of motivation in Open Source software development. http://tc.eserver.org/25790.html http://tc.eserver.org/25790.html This tutorial explores the Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP, or LAMP, Web development framework and shows how that framework can help you build applications to solve common business problems. The tutorial begins with an exploration of the LAMP architecture, then introduces fundamental PHP concepts. After a solid grounding of PHP, the tutorial explains MySQL support, with coverage focusing on database concepts and how to access MySQL from PHP. All of these techniques are discussed within the context of a real-world customer management example. http://tc.eserver.org/25569.html http://tc.eserver.org/25569.html People who are unfamiliar with open source generally don't like evangelists--at all. This is particularly true for managers who may take the same disdain to evangelists that they take to salespeople and marketers. http://tc.eserver.org/25471.html http://tc.eserver.org/25471.html The principles of 'open source' - collaborative forms of creating knowledge pioneered in software development - have huge untapped potential to transform business, government and everyday life. http://tc.eserver.org/25442.html http://tc.eserver.org/25442.html DocBook is an XML vocabulary that is particularly well suited to books and papers about computer hardware and software. http://tc.eserver.org/25255.html http://tc.eserver.org/25255.html Free software has penetrated close to three-quarters of all multi-billion dollar corporations and growth continues steadily. Industry research confirms that the primary reason IT organizations purchase free software solutions is the opportunity to reduce costs and improve technology performance. While leading products such as Linux, Apache and MySQL have generated the most attention, free software tools for IT management such as Nagios have matured and are poised for mainstream adoption. http://tc.eserver.org/25041.html http://tc.eserver.org/25041.html In a few years viewing source code within the major components of software infrastructure will probably be a routine way of doing business. In the meantime it seems that the only reason managers want free software is because it is free (as in free of costs). That's not a good reason in itself: in the long run there are compelling reasons that robust, mission critical infrastructure software should be made free software. http://tc.eserver.org/24998.html http://tc.eserver.org/24998.html One of the most significant developments in the software and web development community in the past few years has been the increased use of open source software. It's vital for any programmer, web designer, or other computer professional to understand that open source licenses are not all the same. The differences between licenses can have a big impact on how you may use or distribute the software. http://tc.eserver.org/23809.html http://tc.eserver.org/23809.html MySQL is old news ...or is it? In this fast-paced expose, Blane looks at where MySQL is now, and what's planned in Versions 4.1 and 5 - including the exciting developments of MySQL Cluster and Stored Procedures! http://tc.eserver.org/23765.html http://tc.eserver.org/23765.html Software developers spend a large part of their time communicating with each other.  Clear and effective technical communications are needed to keep the team in synch and to allow individuals with key knowledge to apply that knowledge where it is needed. One tenet of the open source community is that techincal communications should take place in public forums.   Mailing lists are the backbone of open source communications.  Beyond that, open source projects need support for precisely communicating technical details and for group decision-making. http://tc.eserver.org/22080.html http://tc.eserver.org/22080.html Open-source CMS has now matured to the point where it should be considered alongside commercial products, but is not without its weaknesses and issues. http://tc.eserver.org/20614.html http://tc.eserver.org/20614.html A collection of resources about open-source software, innovation in copyright, and their implications for technical communicators. http://tc.eserver.org/20052.html http://tc.eserver.org/20052.html The last few years have seen very considerable developments in the networks and technologies of electronic commerce, matched by the promotional and regulatory initiatives of international and national government towards electronic commerce. Of particular note have been the technological and regulatory developments in relation to public key cryptography and digital signatures. These regulatory developments arguably represent a promotion of an emerging Public Key Infrastructure as an international open network infrastructure for digital signature authorisation in electronic commerce. However, over the same period concerns have been growing in other international open network infrastructures, such as banking and finance, that such strongly inter-connected and inter-dependent infrastructures may be subject to systematic risk. Indeed, it appears that vulnerability to systematic risk is a characteristic of any complex open network. Therefore, the question can be posed whether the emerging Public Key Infrastructure is also vulnerable to systematic risk. http://tc.eserver.org/20030.html http://tc.eserver.org/20030.html There are at least two important issues that are closely related to the open-source software support questions we raised in part 1 of this look at open-source practicalities: documenting the software and training people to use it. With a traditional, commercially licensed product, documentation is as simple as obtaining a hard copy, a CD or going online to get all the details needed from the software's developer. Or, if something is missing, using support from the vendor to get questions and issues resolved. http://tc.eserver.org/19997.html http://tc.eserver.org/19997.html Have you ever run across a bug in your word processor that interfered with your work? Or perhaps you've wished that your graphics program had a certain feature that would make your life easier. With most commercial software, you're at the mercy of the company that created it. All you can do is call the technical support line, explain the situation, and hope that there's a work-around or that your issue will be addressed whenever the next version is released. With proprietary software, the company owns the software and doesn't allow anyone else to modify it or even see the source code -- the human-readable (well, programmer-readable) instructions used to create the executable file that the computer runs. Some people have likened such software to a car with the hood locked shut so that only the manufacturer can service it. But with open-source software, you have other options because you have the source code. If you have the knowledge, you can modify the program yourself. If not, you can hire a programmer to make the changes you want. http://tc.eserver.org/19544.html http://tc.eserver.org/19544.html Open source communities have successfully developed a great deal of software although most computer users only use proprietary applications. The usability of open source software is often regarded as one reason for this limited distribution. In this paper we review the existing evidence of the usability of open source software and discuss how the characteristics of open source development influence usability. We describe how existing human-computer interaction techniques can be used to leverage distributed networked communities, of developers and users, to address issues of usability. http://tc.eserver.org/19539.html http://tc.eserver.org/19539.html This paper addresses the problem of measurement of non-monetary economic activity, specifically in the area of free/open source software [1] communities. It describes the problems associated with research on these communities in the absence of measurable monetary transactions, and suggests possible alternatives. A class of techniques using software source code as factual documentation of economic activity is described and a methodology for the extraction, interpretation and analysis of empirical data from software source code is detailed, with the outline of algorithms for identifying collaborative authorship and determining the identity of coherent economic actors in developer communities. Finally, conclusions are drawn from the application of these techniques to a base of software. http://tc.eserver.org/19056.html http://tc.eserver.org/19056.html This paper presents an educational model derived from open source methods for computer programming. The article places this search for an alternative model within a framework of proprietary educational practices that are driven by a need for efficiency and rationalization. As an alternative model, the paper suggests that an open source derived educational process would emphasize collaborative problem based learning, working through drafts, risk taking, mentoring, user testing, releasing early and often. . . . http://tc.eserver.org/19057.html http://tc.eserver.org/19057.html Technical communicators have become increasingly interested in how to 'open up' the documentation process - to encourage workers to participate in developing documentation that closely fits their needs. This goal has led technical communicators to engage in usability testing, user-centered design approaches, and, more recently, open source documentation. Although these approaches have all had some success, there are other ways to encourage the participatory citizenship that is implied in these approaches. One way is through an open systems approach in which workers can consensually modify a given system and add their own contributions to the system. http://tc.eserver.org/18892.html http://tc.eserver.org/18892.html Copyleft contains the normal copyright statement, asserting ownership and identification of the author. However, it then gives away some of the other rights implicit in the normal copyright: it says that not only are you free to redistribute this work, but you are also free to change the work. However, you cannot claim to have written the original work, nor can you claim that these changes were created by someone else. Finally, all derivative works must also be placed under these terms. http://tc.eserver.org/18893.html http://tc.eserver.org/18893.html Good ideas are worth money. So why are hard-headed operators giving them away for free? http://tc.eserver.org/18293.html http://tc.eserver.org/18293.html Open Source Software (OSS) is a software project where all the source code is freely available, usually according to a licensing agreement baring commercial gain on the source. The contributors to the project are usually part-time computing enthusiasts with a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences. Usability specialists are not generally part of the development process. http://tc.eserver.org/14306.html http://tc.eserver.org/14306.html CVW is a collaboration software environment that provides a 'virtual building' where teams can communicate, collaborate, and share information, regardless of their geographic location. CVW takes virtual meetings one step further and enables virtual co-location through persistent virtual rooms, each incorporating people, information, and tools appropriate to a task, operation, or service. http://tc.eserver.org/13957.html http://tc.eserver.org/13957.html Is Linux in your technical writing future? The possibility is becoming too strong to ignore. Companies like Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse First Boston are using Linux now, and countries ranging from Germany and France to Pakistan and Venezuela are adapting it and other open source software for government business. In high-tech, IBM reports that over one thousand of its business partners became Linux-certified in 2001, and the Linux applications listed in the IBM Global Solutions Directory rose from 2300 to 2800 in the six months between June 2001 and January 2002. In a little less than three years, Linux has captured over a third of the server market, and, while its share of the desktop market seems stalled at four percent, growing concerns about security, the cost of commercial software, and restrictive licensing practices are starting to change that. http://tc.eserver.org/13454.html http://tc.eserver.org/13454.html The movement toward open systems is gaining momentum. Those technical writers in the computer and software industries who have been accustomed to working in the world of proprietary systems will have to adjust to working in this new world of open systems. This paper briefly describes the open systems movement and then discusses in detail the implications of that movement for technical writers. This includes the challenges they will face and the skills they will need to develop. A brief case study of the involvement of technical writers in the Open Software Foundation’s DCE project is included. http://tc.eserver.org/12963.html http://tc.eserver.org/12963.html The idea behind Open Source is simple: everyone should have the freedom to copy, distribute, and change source code. The implications, however, overturn the conventional high-tech business model. When software is no longer intellectual property, everything changes. Development is quicker because more people are involved. Bugs are caught more quickly. Instead of being passive consumers, customers can become partners in development. Instead of selling software, companies sell hardware, services, or added value. Internally, companies become more interactive and more loosely structured. If Open Source continues to gather speed, high-tech workers will discover that it is not just a development model, but also a new model for corporate life. For writers, the approach of Open Source could be especially important. How documentation is viewed and used, how writers interact with developers, and what tools are used--all of these and more could be affected by the Open Source movement. http://tc.eserver.org/12975.html http://tc.eserver.org/12975.html The Open Source Writers Group is a non-commercial, non-profit organization whose primary goal is to improve the overall quality and quantity of free open-source and open-content documentation. All OSWG activities and projects are related to this primary goal.