From: Greg Thomas (get.listsgmail.com)
Date: Fri Nov 10 2006 - 12:29:16 CST

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On 11/5/06, Joachim Schipper <j.schippermath.uu.nl> wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 05, 2006 at 11:05:31AM -0500, Jon Radel wrote:
> > Peter N. M. Hansteen wrote:
> >
> > > A word of caution to people who take it upon themselves to write docs:
> > >
> > > When you don't feel like maintaining the material any longer,
> > > *PLEASE* have the decency to remove it from the net, unless of
> > > course you can arrange for somebody else to update your baby and
> > > keep it up to date and useful.
> > >
> > > Otherwise you will find that something you wrote and may very well
> > > have been valid and useful at the time turns into a real pain for
> > > others.
> >
> > I fear that's an unrealistic goal, nice as it might be. :-) For
> > starters, authors don't necessarily have control over every copy of
> > their work on the web. Anyway, some people are actually interested in
> > the history also.
> >
> > Personally, I'd be ecstatic if authors of such material would simply
> > make clear what version(s) they were discussing, as appropriate, and
> > when the material was written and last updated.
>
> Actually, when reading the article, it should be pretty clear the author
> is discussing 3.0-ish. Being a little more clear about that upfront,
> instead of halfway through, would be nice but should not be a
> requirement.

Clearly stating one's subject at the beginning of a paper has been
taught as a requirement in my English classes as long as I have been
writing. It's pretty fundamental.

What should have been included: "The details of this paper apply to
OpenBSD 2.9-3.0. No one should be using 2.8 and earlier at this point
because they aren't supported, and I can't see the future so this
doesn't apply to 3.1 and later".

Greg

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