Re: tasks overview wishlist: Canonical citing reference
On Tue, Oct 07, 2008 at 11:55:34PM +0200, Bernhard R. Link wrote:
> * Michael Banck <mbanck@debian.org> [081007 22:53]:
> > Also, having this would sense a clear signal to upstream authors that we
> > consider proper citing important and that enforcing citations in
> > copyright licensing is not the best thing to do.
>
> I think the better signal to send is that "enforced citation" is
> considered not academical behaviour as it is simply citation trolling.
> I my eyes it is equivalent of paying people to cite you. (Or rather
> eqauivalent to harrassing people to make them cite you).
>
> There might be things where software can actually be used as academical
> contribution to some paper, but all examples I've yet seen were just
> ridicilously broad. Neighter your calculator nor your typewriter belonged
> in the citations (though sometimes might have been added as kind of joke,
> like people trying to award PHDs to their desktop computer), not does
> the equivalent in software. Citations have an academic purpose, they are
> not something to collect to make your resume look better...
Well, it's not that black/white. For many independent researchers, a
citation count might be a good estimate that the grant money they get is
well spent etc.
In the above, I assumed that we were talking about scientific packages,
not random Debian packages like vi.
Certainly, the citation mannors might be different in the various fields
of science, but at least in some fields, if you use a software package
to create scientific data you publish, you should cite that package.
Now, whether that is a SHOULD or MUST and how it is encoded in
etiquette/copyright/trademark/whatever law/rules is differing.
But I think pointing out an approriate citation is better than waiting
for authors to enforce it.
Michael
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