One of the most common use cases may be researchers who use someone else’s software and want to cite it in a technical paper. This will be similar to existing practices for citing research artifacts in papers.
“Requirements” for researcher:
Name of software
Names of software authors/contributors
Software version number and release date, or download date
Location/repository, or contact name/email (if not publicly available)
Citable DOI of software
Format for citing software in text and in bibliography
Possible steps:
Software developers create CITATION file and associate with source code release/repository.
Researcher finds and uses software for research paper.
Researcher identifies citation metadata file (e.g., “CITATION” file) associated with downloaded/installed software source code or in online repository/published location.
CITATION file includes necessary citation metadata
CITATION file may include BibTeX entry, suggested citation format
Researcher cites software appropriately, e.g. in methodology section; reference included in bibliography.
Need to add more cases for this use case, e.g. what happens if the code is commercial, if it comes from a package manager (e.g., binary, macports), etc?
One of the most common use cases may be researchers who use someone else’s software and want to cite it in a technical paper. This will be similar to existing practices for citing research artifacts in papers.
“Requirements” for researcher:
Possible steps: