* Documentation
Although most of the concepts from Microsoft.NET can
be applied to the completed Mono platform, we do need to
have a complete set of free documentation written specifically
for Mono.
The documentation license we have chosen is the GNU Free
Documentation License (FDL), the standard for most documents
in the free software world.
We need documentation on a number of topics:
* The development tools (compilers, assembler tools,
language reference, design time features).
* Frequently Asked Question compilations.
* HOWTO documents.
* The Class Libraries
* Tutorials on Mono and the specifics of running it.
* A guide to Mono as compared to the Microsoft.NET
Framework SDK
** Class Library documentation
We are moving to a new setup for documenting the class libraries,
and you can read about it here.
A few words of warning and advice for class documentors:
A well-documented API can ease hours of frustration; as Mono
matures, robust and complete class library documentation will
become increasingly important. As you write API documentation,
whether it is embedded in source files or in external Monodoc XML,
please keep the following in mind:
Plagarism, even if it's unintentional, is a Bad Thing(TM).
Microsoft's .NET Framework Class Library documentation is an
excellent resource for understanding the behavior and properties of
a type, and a lot of hard work went in to creating this (copyrighted)
resource. Please don't copy from Microsoft's reference when
documenting a type.
To avoid this, I (jbarn@httcb.net)
suggest that you read the complete Microsoft documentation for a type,
ponder it for a while, and write the Mono documentation in your own
words. While it's certainly okay to refer to the Microsoft
documentation to clarify your understanding of behavior or properties,
please don't open the Microsoft docs and refer to them for each member
you document.
There's a lot of domain expertise among the class library contributors;
let's put the same personal stamp on the class library documentation
that we have on the class libraries themselves.