Joined: 28 Aug 2007 Posts: 1742 Location: Tirupur, India
Hi,
Why are some manuals copyrighted and not available like that of SYNCSORT and other CA products? and some of them are open to public like DFSORT?
Do companies sell manuals separately apart from the main product? That too does not make sense since a customer can't do much without the complete manual for a product. So they got to give away the manuals when they sell the product anyway.
Joined: 26 Apr 2004 Posts: 4652 Location: Raleigh, NC, USA
First of all, as far as I know, all manuals are copyrighted as they are the intellectual property of the party that has produced them. As such they can't be reproduced without the written permission of the author/publisher. That being said, some are openly available for the general public to use as long as they're not illegally reproduced, and others are not available to the general public and are only made available to a licensed party. As far as why some are publically available and some aren't, I can only offer theories:
- To protect their products and any propietary features or options from their competitors.
- To assure that their products are being properly used.
- To assure that their products are not being pirated.
- To assure that their products are not being used by un-licensed parties.
Most third-party software vendors I'm aware of don't charge anything for their product manuals as long as they're provided in electronic form (i.e. as PDF files), and only charge a minimum price to provide them on some sort of physical media.
Joined: 28 Aug 2007 Posts: 1742 Location: Tirupur, India
Hi,
Thanks for your thoughts, I was intending to question the public availability of manuals and got mixed up with the "copy right" terminology.
Its a bit frustrating and hard to find these non-public manuals. Grr!!
Quote:
one thing strange on IBMMAINFARMES is that also linking to them is prohibited
Maybe if the copyright link is provided here then IBMMAINFRAMES may face issues like the ones Use [URL] BBCode for External Links**.com faced for sharing copyrighted music and videos.
Joined: 26 Apr 2004 Posts: 4652 Location: Raleigh, NC, USA
Vasanth, I think there are bigger issues here.
First, if a company has purchased, and is licensed to use, a specific product, and that product is available to be used by the general population of that company, then why haven't the System Administrators provided the product manuals to the whole company via a corporate intranet?
If the product is not for use by the general population, then to me it does make sense to restrict access to the manuals to only those who are on a "need to know" basis. And, when the individuals who use and support a certain product are trained for that product, they usually ARE provided with a full set of manuals for it.
If, for some reason you are being asked to support a product for another company that your company is NOT licensed for, then again, why aren't THEY providing access to those manuals? How could a contract possibly be written and adhered to that doesn't address that issue?
Lastly, I don't know of too many vendors that don't have a downloadable electronic version of their product manuals available for anyone who accesses their website, or who calls and asks, especially the major ones: IBM, Syncsort, CA, BMC, Sterling Commerce, Compuware, Macro4, etc.
Joined: 23 Nov 2006 Posts: 19244 Location: Inside the Matrix
Hello,
Quote:
Its a bit frustrating and hard to find these non-public manuals. Grr!!
This should not be frustrating. . .
If the organization is licensed, all of the material is available for free. If the organization is not licensed, it should not be a problem as the organization has no need for them. . .
As Kevin mentioned, if one works as a contractor, the licensed client needs to make the material available to them. One of my first orders of business at a new client is to learn where the documentation resides and the "site id's" for products that i'm to support.
