Re: Citation format for Octave

[Carnë Draug]

On 3 June 2015 at 19:01, rik <address@hidden> wrote:
> On 05/26/2015 02:24 AM, Juan Pablo Carbajal wrote:
>> On Sun, May 24, 2015 at 4:53 AM, Carnë Draug <address@hidden> wrote:
>>> On 12 May 2015 at 00:03, rik <address@hidden> wrote:
>>>> John, Carnë, and anyone else who regularly writes academic papers,
>>>>
>>>> What should the citation() function return for Octave 4.0?  The current
>>>> text of the file is:
>>>>
>>>> -- CITATION --
>>>> To cite GNU Octave in publications use:
>>>>
>>>>   John W. Eaton, David Bateman, Søren Hauberg, Rik Wehbring (2014).
>>>>   GNU Octave version 3.8.1 manual: a high-level interactive language for
>>>>   numerical computations.
>>>>   CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.  ISBN 1441413006,
>>>>   URL http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/doc/interpreter/
>>>>
>>>> A BibTeX entry for LaTeX users is:
>>>>
>>>>   @book{,
>>>>     author    = {John W. Eaton, David Bateman, S\oren Hauberg, and Rik
>>>> Wehbring},
>>>>     title     = {{GNU Octave} version 3.8.1 manual: a high-level
>>>> interactive language for numerical computations},
>>>>     publisher = {CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform},
>>>>     year      = {2014},
>>>>     note      = {{ISBN} 1441413006},
>>>>     url       = {http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/doc/interpreter},
>>>>   }
>>>>
>>>> We have invested a lot of time and effort in creating GNU Octave, please
>>>> cite it
>>>> when using it.  See also `citation pkgname' for citing Octave packages.
>>>>
>>>> -- End CITATION --
>>>>
>>>> This is clearly not right, but just changing the version to 4.0.0 isn't
>>>> going to make the ISBN number correct.  Should we drop the publisher and
>>>> note fields entirely?
>>>>
>>> We have an entry on the FAQ about this (which should be updated now).
>>>
>>>     http://wiki.octave.org/FAQ#How_can_I_cite_Octave.3F
>>>
>>> We ask users to cite the software itself.  Since not every journal will 
>>> allow
>>> this, the recommendation is to cite the published book if not possible.  But
>>> citing software is becoming more common, and there will be fewer issues if
>>> users try to cite it nowadays.
>>>
>>> There's this article [1] from the Software Sustainability Institute that
>>> discusses how to best cite software (this is aimed at the users not at
>>> developers, but it's a good view on the subject).
>>>
>>> Roughly, recommendation is to cite the software.  It specially recommends
>>> against citing a paper or version of a manual (like R does), because it's
>>> not version specific.  The following are some points from section 7 of the
>>> article:
>>>
>>>     * In the first draft of a paper, always put software citations in
>>>       references or bibliographies.
>>>     * Be prepared to debate with reviewers why you have cited the software:
>>>       you want to acknowledge the contribution of the software's authors and
>>>       the value of software as a legitimate research output.
>>>     * If a reviewer disagrees with a formal software citation, you can still
>>>       make a general reference to the software in the paper.
>>>     * If the software has a DOI (digital object identifier) use it to cite
>>>       the software. If the software has its own website, use the website's
>>>       URL for the citation.
>>>
>>> I think we should recommend.  Have a ready to use reference for the
>>> software itself and a DOI (we can have one for each Octave release).
>>>
>>> And I guess we could some more public service and have citation() tell users
>>> at the end that at very least, they should note the version of software used
>>> in text, not for the sake of Octave developers, but on the interest of
>>> reproducible research.
>>>
>>> Carnë
>>>
>>> [1] http://software.ac.uk/so-exactly-what-software-did-you-use
>> Indeed, as pointed before citing software, so far, hasn't been a
>> problem for me, here an example
>>
>> http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fncom.2013.00191/full#B69
>>
>> It would be nice to have a DOI. This was indeed was asked by the
>> editors of that journal, but it was not a reason for removing the
>> citation.
>
> It would be nice to have a DOI, but I think we will just have to settle for
> a URL.  According to the Wikipedia entry for DOI, "Organizations that meet
> the contractual obligations of the DOI system and are willing to pay to
> become a member of the system can assign DOIs."  I don't think we want to
> use development funds just to join and get a single number.
>

Yes.  But we don't have to be managing the DOIs ourselves.  There is
Zetcode [1] which is Europeand founded to do this for researchers.  It seems
mostly meant to create DOIs for research data but seems that they're
expanding to support software as well.  So we upload our releases to their
server and get a DOI for it.

When you publish a paper, you get a DOI for it but it's the journal that
handles and has that cost, not you the author.

Carnë

[1] https://zenodo.org/about