When I originally started my manual project, there was already an Official Csound Reference Manual (last known address: http://www.lakewoodsound.com/csound/hypertext/manual.htm). The Official manual was maintained by David M. Boothe. I found its layout confusing and I wanted to change it. But since it was maintained with commercial word processing programs, I couldn't. I could neither afford those programs nor were they available for my main computing platform.
So I created an alternative to the Official Csound Reference Manual. I changed the layout: used actual page numbers, renamed the index section to "Index" and moved it to the end, add working examples, got rid of the HTML frames, etc. I distributed my manual using the DocBook/SGML format so that anyone on any platform could edit it with a text editor. This manual can also be produced with freely available programs.
David M. Boothe wasn't interested in maintaining my DocBook/SGML version of the manual. He was also concerned that people would confuse his project (the "Official" one) with mine. So out of respect for his wishes, I named my project the Alternative Csound Reference Manual. I made this decision so that nobody would confuse my project (the "Alternative" one) with his.
It's frustrating that members of the tight-knit Csound community have attacked me for merely using the term "Alternative". Some have tried to confuse my readers by referring to my manual using my last name, often misspelling it. One outspoken member of the Csound community has personally attacked me for being "confrontational" and suggested that I change my manual's name to be more "neutral". For the record, I chose my project's name out of respect to David M. Boothe not malice. Changing it now would only confuse my regular readers.
Written by Kevin Conder, October 2002.