[Rd] [Rcpp-devel] GPL and R Community Policies (Rcpp)

[Joris Meys]

On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 9:45 PM, Dominick Samperi <djsamperi at gmail.com> wrote:

> Perhaps a wider community of R users can weigh in on a
> policy decision that was implicitly deemed acceptable on this
> thread. Namely, that it is fine to arbitrarily and
> for no reason deprecate the contributions of past
> authors, and as more progress is made, even more
> disparaging remarks can be added.
>
I agree with Hadley that the remark can hardly be seen as disparaging.
As mainly an R user, I am quite surprised to find out that the rcpp
package originates from you though, so I can understand you would
personally like a line in the sense of

"this package has been originally written by Dominick Samperi in 2005-2006"

But then again, apparently quite a lot changed, so that would -again-
leave a wrong impression and downweigh the effort done by others more
recently. If only the name and a small portion of the code remained,
well, so be it. Seems correct to put it that way. Frankly said: It
ain't your package any more, it's a whole different thing.

Whether or not deprecating the earlier efforts is a policy, is highly
debatable. It seems more a matter of common sense to me: mention the
authors of the _present_ code. And as it goes, I for one am not going
to set "policies" or "politeness rules" in the R community or any
other.

Now personally, I sign the work I do, send it into the world, and
don't bother once I stopped contributing. People who need to know what
I'm worth, will see that in my recent and ongoing work. About all the
rest, I couldn't be bothered less. Seems more healthy for the heart to
me. Then again, I don't care that much about reputation anyway. I'd
like to see my work used, rather than being praised for it. (this is a
general remark, not directed towards you!)

Cheers
Joris
-- 
Joris Meys
Statistical consultant

Ghent University
Faculty of Bioscience Engineering
Department of Applied mathematics, biometrics and process control

tel : +32 9 264 59 87
Joris.Meys at Ugent.be
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