Timothy Murphy wrote at about 13:30:16 +0000 on Tuesday, March 8, 2011:
 > hansbkk AT gmail DOT com wrote:
 > 
 > > if a user takes the
 > > attitude that a program "should have" well-written documentation
 > > designed for non-technical users to understand, and any program that
 > > doesn't is somehow deficient in his eyes, then perhaps he would be
 > > better served as a paying customer of a company he then has the right
 > > to complain to.
 > 
 > I completely disagree.
 > Any program offered to the public should be properly documented.
 > This has nothing to do with open source.
 > 

No program - open source or commercial - *need* to be
documented. However, presence and quality of documentation will
determine the success of the program in the marketplace. Software
writers have the freedom to decide what level of documentation they
have the resources to provide or makes commercial or personal
sense. Similarly, software buyers and users will use the presence and
quality of documentation as one among several factors in choosing
among alternative software products.

The only difference perhaps is that for commercial products if the
software description and/or license claims to provide documentation
then the user may perhaps have a legal claim for such service. If not,
the user may have a economic leverage in implicitly or explicitly
threatening to withhold future purchases if the quality of
documentation is lacking.

For open source, the market still works, and all other things being
equal, the consumer will tend to choose the better documented
product. However, the user has no leverage other than perhaps personal
suasion and appealing to the pride of the software writer.

In the specific case of BackupPC, I personal would prefer that the
author (Craig) focus his time on developing the next version since
currently he is the only developer. If other users want documentation,
then nothing is stopping them from contributing rather than
complaining. That being said, the documentation for BackupPC is pretty
good even if not perfect.

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