Dear all,
I am writing now the first ado file that I think is going to be fit for
circulation, so I if anybody has guidance about basic things such as
acknowledgements, copyright, and coauthoriship I would be glad to hear from
them.
I could ask about the specific of my case, but perhaps it is more useful for
me and everybody else on the list to talk about the point in general. (In
the cases that follow I write "I" just because it is clearer than
programmer1, programmer2, not because I did all that)
Case1: I saw some code on StataList. That code gave me the idea. I made an
ado out of it which is much more than what I saw, but the code I saw still
constitute the conceptual backbone of my code.
Proposed Solutions: I think that acknowledgements are a must, but is
anything more necessary? Asking permission? Offering coauthorship?
Case2: Most of code is all mine, idea and all, but a piece is copy pasted in
from someone else's code.
Proposed Solutions: acknowledgments and permission?
Case3: Most of code is all mine, idea and all, but a piece is copy pasted in
from another StataCorp ado. What does the copyright agreement say? (Please
don't make me read it, I am far too lazy for that, moreover I am not sure it
is available anywhere (after you click "I accept" upon installation, where
does it go? It is not anywhere in the Stata8 folder that I can see, it is
not on the Stata Website that I can find)
Case4: how to propose to somebody that I would like to coauthor a program
with him/her? Via email it is kind of difficult to broach the issue
Case5: for a newbie in writing ado files like me, who/how to approach
somebody to ask him/her whether in his/her opinion the ado is fit for
circulation of it would create a lot of problems for users?
Case6: my code requires somebody else's ado to work properly. How to plan
ahead? What if this other person changes his/her ado? May I package his/her
ado with mine as a subroutine?
Proposed solution: ask for permission, acknowledgements
Any comment welcome.
Best Regards,
Renzo Comolli
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