OSS and the info barrier
CodeBetter's Scott Bellware has two posts on the information barrier in OSS (my subtext), one on documentaion barriers in OSS and another on reading and understanding code with a slant on OSS. I left a comment on the first post but I think the second post needs a some further consideration.
Each OSS project has its own objectives, timeframes and constriants. It's important to consider that with out a corp sponsor the developers behind a OSS project are at the mercy of their dayjobs and private lives (which effects all OSS developers). The folks behind OSS projects work (mostly) for free and work very hard to help develop software to help you solve your own coding issues and deliver your own projects, the info barrier can be frustrating but OSS projects often have friendly and vibrant communities that are willing to help.
This brings me to a point in Scotts post.
"..."community" in open source jargon usually refers the the community of people involved in the development of the project rather than the community at large"
It's an interesting view from Scott, projects that are popular and been around for a good peroid of time have gained a large following and spawned articles, books and other info. Smaller projects sometimes have yet to grow this kind of information and that can be a frustration however most if not all OSS projects have mailing lists and forums with folks who can help answer your questions.
From MbUnit's point of view we have a wiki, articles and blog posts but the problem is that information is spread around. In the next few weeks I'll be addressing this more and will try and get the wiki as up to date as possible with the 2.4 release. Going further MbUnit Gallio will have a far greater degree of information both in deep technical form and more practial end user guides.