Do you guys think we should all cite Grub and BusyBox and bash and libc and setuptools and pip and openssl and GNU/Linux and LXC and Docker; or else it's plagiarism for us all?
#OpenAccess On Wednesday, September 12, 2018, Stephen J. Turnbull < turnbull.stephen...@u.tsukuba.ac.jp> wrote: > Chris Barker via Python-Dev writes: > > > But "I wrote some code in Python to produce these statistics" -- > > does that need a citation? > > That depends on what you mean by "statistics" and whether (as one > should) one makes the code available. If the code is published or > "available on request", definitely, Python should be cited. If not, > and by "statistics" you mean the kind of things provided by Steven > d'Aprano's excellent statistics module (mean, median, standard > deviation, etc), maybe no citation is needed. But anything more > esoteric than that (even linear regression), yeah, I would say you > should cite both Python and any reference you used to learn the > algorithm or formulas, in the context of mentioning that your > statistics are home-brew, not produced by one of the recognized > applications for doing so. > > > If so, maybe that would take a different form. > > Yes, it would. But not so different: eg, version is analogous to > edition when citing a book. > > > Anyway, hard to make this decision without some idea how the > > citation is intended to be used. > > Same as any other citation, (1) to give credit to those responsible > for providing a resource (this is why publishers and their metadata of > city are still conventionally included), and (2) to show where that > resource can be obtained. AFAICS, both motivations are universally > applicable in polite society. NB: Replication is an important reason > for wanting to acquire the resource, but it's not the only one. > > I think underlying your comment is the question of *what* resource is > being cited. I can think of three offhand that might be characterized > as "Python". First, the PSF, as a provider of funding. There is a > conventional form for this: a footnote on the title or author's name > saying "The author acknowledges [a] <purpose of grant such as travel> > grant [grant identifier if available] from the Python Software > Foundation." I usually orally mention them in presentations, too. > That one's easy; *everybody* should *always* do that. > > The rest of these, sort of an ideal to strive for. If you keep a > bibliographic database, and there are now quite a few efforts to crowd > source them, it's easier to go the whole 9 yards than to skimp. But > except in cases where we don't need to even mention the code, probably > we should be citing, for reasons of courtesy to readers as well as > authors, editors, and publishers (as disgusting as many publishers are > as members of society, they do play a role in providing many resources > ---we should find ways to compete them into good behavior, not > ostracize them). > > The second is the Python *language and standard library*. Then the > Language Reference and/or the Library Reference should be cited > briefly when Python is first mentioned, and in the text introducing a > program or program fragment, with a full citation in the bibliography. > I tentatively suggest that the metadata for the Language Reference > would be > > Author: principal author(s) (Guido?) et al. OR python.org OR > Python Contributors > Title: The Python Language Reference > Version: to match Python version used (if relevant, different > versions each get full citations), probably should not be > "current" > Publisher: Python Software Foundation > Date: of the relevant version > Location: City of legal address of PSF > URL: to version used (probably should not be the default) > Date accessed: if "current" was used > > The Library reference would be the same except for Title. > > The third is a *particular implementation*. In that case the metadata > would be > > Author: principal author(s) (Guido) et al. OR python.org OR > Python Contributors > Title: The cPython Python distribution > Python Version: as appropriate (if relevant, different versions each > get full citations), never "current" > Distributor Version: if different from Python version (eg, additional > Debian cruft) > Publisher: Distributor (eg, PSF, Debian Project, Anaconda Inc.) > Date: of the relevant version > Location: City of legal address of distributor > > If downloaded: > > URL: to version used (including git commit SHA1 if available) > Date accessed: download from distributor, not installation date > > If received on physical medium: use the "usual" form of citation for a > collection of individual works (even if Python was the only thing on > it). Probably the only additional information needed would be the > distributor as editor of the collection and the name of the > collection. > > In most cases I can think of, if the implementation is cited, the > Language and Library References should be cited, too. > > Finally, if Python or components were modified for the project, the > modified version should be preserved in a repository and a VCS > identifier provided. This does not imply the repository need be > publicly accessible, of course, although it might be for other reasons > (eg, in a GSoC project,wherever or if hosted for free on GitHub). > > I doubt that "URNs" like DOI and ISBN are applicable, but if available > they should be included in all cases as well. > > Steve > _______________________________________________ > Python-Dev mailing list > Python-Dev@python.org > https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev > Unsubscribe: https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/ > wes.turner%40gmail.com >
_______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com