On 07/10/2015 1:39 PM, Tim Keitt wrote: > On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 11:29 AM, Spencer Graves <spencer.gra...@prodsyse.com >> wrote: > >> Another example: The "Author" of the Ecdat package is Yves Croissant < >> yves.croiss...@let.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr>. I'm the Maintainer. At some >> point, I may add my name to the list of Authors but I certainly would never >> remove Yves' name. That package is, I think, exclusively data sets. I >> added functions, which I later spun off into a separate Edfun package; I'm >> listed as the Author and Maintainer of that. >> > > This reminded me of something I have always found curious about roles > listed in the DESCRIPTION file. Since there is no "maintainer" role in this > list: http://www.loc.gov/marc/relators/relaterm.html, which was used to get > the role names, you will be listed as the "creator" of the package when you > list yourself as maintainer even if you did not initiate the package or > even contribute code. >
I think it was easier to (ab)use that role than to get a "Maintainer" role added to the standard ones. The description of "creator" is "A person or organization responsible for the intellectual or artistic content of a resource" The usual English meaning of "creator" would be close to "A person or organization originally responsible for the intellectual or artistic content of a resource" R's use of it is close to "A person or organization currently responsible for the intellectual or artistic content of a resource" Duncan Murdoch ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
