From the GSoC FAQ:
What are the goals of this program?
Google Summer of Code has several goals:
- Get more open source code created and released for the benefit of all;
- Inspire young developers to begin participating in open source development;
- Help open source projects identify and bring in new developers and committers;
- Provide students in Computer Science and related fields the opportunity to do work related to their academic pursuits (think "flip bits, not burgers");
- Give students more exposure to real-world software development scenarios (e.g., distributed development, software licensing questions, mailing-list etiquette).
If you substitute code/documentation, developers/tech writers, Computer Science/Technical Communication, I think it's fairly obvious that the same benefits could apply to Tech Comm students writing documentation for open source projects.
Members of the user experience community have started an analogous effort called Season of Usability. It's time to do the same for technical communication in open source.
The February 2008 issue of Technical Communication included an article by Dave Yeats on "The Role for Technical Communicators in Open-source Software Development". (You can read it online if you are an STC member.) He gives an excellent explanation and history of the open-source movement, and describes why it is not quite as user-centered as it claims to be. He argues that the best value that technical communicators can offer to open-source projects is not more documentation, but user-advocacy:
Rather than offering to write procedural information for individual projects, technical communicators could use their abilities in user analysis to help developers better understand their target audience and the importance of usability in software. While documentation may offer workarounds and help users navigate unwieldy interfaces, open source would benefit even more if those interfaces were made more intuitive so that the documentation wasn't necessary.
I agree that would be great. The trouble is, I don't see technical communicators lining up in droves to participate in open-source projects at all. I've noted the few I know about.
On the other hand, technical communication students need projects, and they need work products to add to their portfolios if they hope to get a job in this field. Yeats's article mentions the Open Source Development and Documentation Project at Purdue University, which integrates open-source software into technical communication courses. That's cool. (Unfortunately, their website appears to be down as I write this.) However, what if your institution doesn't have program like this? What can a student or instructor do on their own?
That's why I think there is a need for a "Summer of Doc". Or, a "Season of Doc", because it doesn't have to be in the summer, and it doesn't have to be just three months. The word geek in me wants to call it "Period of Doc", just for the cheap punctuation pun, but the user advocate recognizes that that won't make sense to many people.
What do you think? Anybody want to help?