Making Content Decisions between Open Source and Enterprise Versions of a Software Product

Abstract

This case study shares how a cloud software development startup maintains both enterprise and open source content for its products by presenting its product and content strategy as a rubric to guide documentation decisions. The rubric is situated within the context of the company’s business objectives as well as within the concerns of the field, such as content strategy, usability, accessibility, and discoverability. The rubric is divided into three parts: decisions about the content itself, content operations for lifecycle maintenance, and content access. Practitioners can use the rubric to inform their content strategy across enterprise and open source documentation. Academics might find the rubric helpful as a teaching tool for content strategy courses. Together, practitioners and academics can collaborate on further research to understand how content strategy decisions between enterprise and open source technologies impact the community’s ability to use and innovate on the technology, while aligning with an organization’s broader strategic goals.