readthedocs.org/docs/story.rst

The Story of Read the Docs
==========================

Documenting projects is hard, hosting them shouldn’t be. Read the Docs was created to make hosting documentation simple. 

Read the Docs was `started`_ with a couple main goals in mind. The first goal was
to encourage people to write documentation, by removing the barrier of entry to
hosting. The other goal was to create a central platform for people to find
documentation. Having a shared platform for all documentation allows for
innovation at the platform level, allowing work to be done once and benefit
everyone.

`Documentation matters`_, but its often overlooked. We think that we can help a
documentation culture flourish.
Great projects, such as Django_ and SQLAlchemy_, and projects from companies
like Mozilla_, are already using Read the Docs to serve their documentation to
the world.

The site has grown quite a bit over the past year.
Our `look back at 2013`_ shows some numbers that show our progress.
The job isn't anywhere near done yet,
but it's a great honor to be able to have such an impact already.

We plan to keep building a great experience for people hosting their docs with us,
and for users of the documentation that we host.

.. _started: http://ericholscher.com/blog/2010/aug/16/announcing-read-docs/
.. _`Documentation matters`: http://ericholscher.com/blog/2012/jan/22/why-read-docs-matters/
.. _look back at 2013: http://ericholscher.com/blog/2013/dec/23/read-the-docs-2013-stats/

.. _`Django`: https://docs.djangoproject.com/
.. _`SQLAlchemy`: http://docs.sqlalchemy.org/
.. _`Mozilla`: http://mozilla.org