Definition: RTFM - Read The F'ing Manual. Occasionally it is ironically rendered as Read The Fine Manual. A phrase uttered at people who have asked a question that we, the enlightened, feel is beneath our dignity to answer, but not beneath our dignity to use as an opportunity to squish a newbie's ego. Documentation, and technical support in general, sets the tone for your community, in that it determines who sticks around. If you're a jerk, the next generation of your community will be composed of jerks. Rich expounds on 20 years of Open Source documentation experience, and lessons learned about not being a jerk, and crafting great documentation as a side-effect.
Rich has been involved in Open Source since before it had that name. He's a director at the Apache Software Foundation, and a community architect at Red Hat.
