DOSUG Meeting

Driving Open-Source Adoption with Documentation

by Sarah White

Documentation is paramount to increasing an open source project’s adoption and growth. Planning and writing documentation for a variety of users and taking into consideration their needs, backgrounds, and environments can quickly become complex and feel overwhelming. Using examples from new and mature open source projects, we’ll explore strategies and steps you can use to plan, organize, write and improve your documentation.

• Determine your project’s audiences

• Select and prioritize the types of documentation each audience needs

• Outline and write the text

• Brainstorm and create useful and interesting examples

• Gather feedback and incorporate it into the documentation

• Use the documentation to improve your project