[OPEN-ILS-DOCUMENTATION] How and what should a "vendor" document? WAS: 2.1 Status and Blocking Bugs Request

[Mike Rylander]

First, sorry for not responding directly to the existing thread.  I
was not, until just now, a member of the documentation list -- I sent
my earlier response to both -dev and -documentation, but Lori
responded only to -documentation, so I didn't see it until it was
forwarded to me.

Lori Ayre wrote:
> Mike,
>
> Could you explain what the difference between "feature documentation" (which
> you don't provide) and the documentation you provide as part of your
> development work?

Actually, Lori, what we do provide is exactly "feature documentation."
 That was indeed my point.  What I said is that we do not, in a
compulsory manner, add documentation to estimates for consulting
projects because consulting projects are by their nature hourly and
somewhat open-ended.  Consulting projects are separate and different
from development projects.

Starting at the beginning of 2011, because we recognized the detriment
to the community of not making documentation a standard, presumed part
of development projects instead of an optional add-on (which many
clients would not add on), we instituted a policy of only quoting
development projects with documentation.

More to the point of the original thread, though, I understand where
your confusion may have come from, Lori.  As a consulting vendor, you
work closely with the IMLS grant partners, and in particular with KCLS
for whom EDI was developed.  As you may know, all that development
began some time ago around mid-2010.  KCLS did not want to fund
end-user documentation for EDI development.  Hindsight is 20-20, but
the organization specifying, funding and integrating EDI explicitly
did not pay for documentation on that functionality.

-- 
Mike Rylander
 | Director of Research and Development
 | Equinox Software, Inc. / Your Library's Guide to Open Source
 | phone:  1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457)
 | email:  miker at esilibrary.com
 | web:  http://www.esilibrary.com