On Friday I was asked to review a "Networking Glossary" at work. I felt that it was very poorly written. About half the entries were little more than techno babble that was of no use to a "normal" person, and the other half was simply poorly written, and said nothing. I personally feel that a glossary for non technical people needs to be correct to start with, but written with non technical users in mind.
After raising my concerns with my boss, he had a look too, and felt that the work was of a very poor standard. He agreed that it introduced complex terms that it need not, and then went on to fail to explain them. Some of the explanations are plain wrong, and it's missing many useful terms. He also said part of the work was taken directly from a glossary that Novell produce, and our version even had the same example IP addresses.
It looks like someone with no knowledge of networking, did a Google search, and copied the first things they found. Where they were gaps they made things up - hence the non-technical entries. Personally I think it should be junked, and someone who knows what they are talking about should write it. I have no problems of passing it via a non-technical person to get their view, but it shouldn't start that way.
So much for closed source and protecting IP... I'm ashamed that we would have put this out with our copyright on it when it's just ripped straight off Novell. Who knows what stolen code lies in Windows et al. ?
