With respect to that comment  - I think some clarification is required here - as to how the documentation actually ended up getting online.

Lorraine  is still on the core team, originally was part of the company with her husband Phil Beadle - from Nexxus - who sold the business to Byte, and was contracted and paid by Byte Technology who, and was a paid employee with an agreement with Perpetual Motion to get the information online.  You'll notice that the Byte logo used to be on the help area of the dnn site, as part of an agreement to provide the help documentation, for a period of time until the agreement ran out and it was promptly removed.

For a period of time after that, Lorraine was contracted and received commissions on sales of the PDF files that were sold - http://www.dnnguide.com - which as you can see, the site hasn't been updated really since 2007, which was the time the agreement ran out and other arrangements which I'm not 100% sure of were made, but I think it was directly with Shaun - I could stand corrected, but that was my understanding from speaking with the owners of Byte Technology, who, Phil sold the dotnetnuke.com.au domain and business to back in 2004 or 2005 I think, I can't remember the dates specifically.

So, when I read comments like this - I think it's important that people have a good understanding on how the dynamics of how things work and that at times, things are not always what they seem.

I can't understand why their has been such a drag in the documentation process - it's actually diluted the whole information base, and leads to often out of date information sites on other sites, often you have to pay to get the basics that really should be as part of the open source initiative, but I guess they have their reasons and if I hear once more that it's due to 'no contributors' I'll have to disagree as I have tried myself, as have several other people to offer and contribute only to be rejected on the basis that 'we're not looking for your type of service thanks'. 

So this might give you an idea on how the documentation was funded in the first place, and hopefully the same thing will happen - someone will be able to get on the good side of the corp and get some of the documentation online, for the community, not just a professional edition.

I think we'll see a few people drop out of the project and look for other solutions, but that's to be expected - because it's not going to suit everyone's vision and ethics I guess, but lets give it at least a few months to see how this goes. It could bring about some new momentum for developers who are able to sell some premium solutions.

Nina Meiers

Nina:
First of all, I am glad that you replied to this thread.  I truly respect your opinions, and mostly because they differ from the typical replies, are well thought out, and well written.  They provide a very good foundation for an ongoing conversation.

Volunteers contributing to any and all areas of an open source project is simply how things get done.  You mention that the documentation was originally written by the way of getting an agreement through funding or advertising.  Both are very viable solutions, but are only useful when the situation and personnel match the project.  I know you look at things from a business perspective, so I will as well.

Delegating someone to write the documentation versus contracting someone to do it provide two very different expectations, from both sides of the agreement.  Those expectations include quality, timeliness, accuracy, availability, and more.  You yourself even eluded to the heightened importance of the documentation.  I would disagree with you for these reasons, but only partially. 

Stepping up to volunteer youself to a DNN project is one thing (and a great thing), but with the way that the DNN projects are currently set up, it also requires time from the Core Team to provide organizational resources to get things running.  I know this is something of an excuse, but there are only a few team members that run the organization of the project teams.  

While I cannot speak to your experience specifically, I can tell you that I have been a member of the Media Module team for several months.  We are looking at reorganizing the team right now, and have been waiting for nearly a month now  to make this happen.  So far, it has been my experience that tme has been the issue, and not the declining of volunteers.

The last thing that I want to mention is that we have to also consider something that I am sure they have considered.  We all realize the enormous weight that is lended by readers of documentation.  A single step being badly worded can cause wide reaching ripples of negative results.  Outdated information is easily explained.  But wrong information is inexcusable.  Therefore, from a business perspective it is better to be extremely selective on who and how the documentation is provided. 

And let's not forget that they have been immersed in the journey of gaining the financial funding during the last year.  One step in that process is to get all legal problems and loop holes tied off.  Since we sign agreements to contribute, gaining new members presents new challenges and longer timelines for the funding goals that they were trying to reach.

I know you know better than many of us the types and content of conversations that might take place among the Core Team members, but when I look at the overall picture, and consider the path that we have been on and the goals that have been publically stated for the future, I am more inclined to believe that they are doing the best that they can with their limited resources.

However, this conversation does bring to mind that they either need more resources, and/or a redesigned process of maintaining the organization of project teams, and site content that allows for quicker turnarounds.

Oliver:
I really like your idea of using a Wiki knowledge-base.  Though it would certainly need to be DNN supported and hosted.  I think that it could very well solve a lot of issues and questions.