Open Source and Tech Writing

Open source is great. Some of the world’s most-used software is open source: the Linux operating system, Firefox web browser, LibreOffice, Apache web server, to name but a few well-known brands. Large companies like Microsoft, Google, Red Hat, and IBM contribute to as well as use open source code. Open source ideology is great too. People share code in public repositories, collaborate on making the code better, invite others to join their communities… and all too often, expect those newcomers to understand the product, the code, and the community’s values with very little good documentation.