@ddbeck My first thought is that open source projects should budget for docs work from the start. Documentation isn’t extra polish, it’s part of the software.

In practice, it seems rare that open source software budgets for documentation or much else beyond core development, which is why so much of the work ends up volunteer-driven or underfunded.

@crisverstraeten @ddbeck
very important topic

At @qgis, we currently budget 10% of our funds for documentation work https://qgis.org/community/foundation/annual-budgets/QGISBudget2026.pdf

This funds two writers:
https://blog.qgis.org/2026/02/03/documentation-and-infrastructure-report-2025/

But for many years we relied completely on volunteers as well.