Why do people contribute documentation?
I recently read an article at ONLamp.com about why people write free documentation. As being part of the PHP documentation team, I thought that the article would be an interesting read.
The author goes to show that most people tend to write the documentation because they want a thriving community and personal growth, but they don’t write for thrills or because they enjoy writing. Let me reemphisize that last point: People do not write the documentation because they enjoy writing. I have often been asked why I started to join the PHP team, and I can honestly say that it’s not because I enjoy writing. My father often asks why I contribute to something where I get no monetary reward. It is hard for him to understand how this is like community service, but on a different level. I joined the PHP documentation team to help out and give back to the community, to learn PHP on a more intimate level, and to hopefully be able to study the source and contribute to PHP 6 and beyond.
I enjoy working with the PHP team and have been slacking off in my contributions, but I hope to find some time to help out during the school year.
I did a lot of the original Linux on iPod documentation and your absolutely right; I do it because I like working on a community. I do enjoy writing but the community building is the fun part for me.
Hi Logan,
Can you give us a status update about the possibility of including the Zend_PDF_Cell in the Zend Framework?
Thanks,
Mike
Pretty good post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say that I have really enjoyed reading your blog posts. Any way I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you post again soon.