This is more etiquette than technique.
Maarten's suggestions are in keeping with those at
<http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq>
i.e.
"In practice, you can probably take anything published in either medium and modify it as you will-especially if you do that privately-but publicly we recommend that unless you are the original author, you should change the name of the program, take all blame for any limitations your changes produce, and imply that a suitably large portion of the credit for the program belongs to the original authors."
Nick
[email protected]
Maarten buis
--- On Wed, 18/11/09, Joachim Landström wrote:
> Now the thing is. Either I can keep my updated ado-files
> for myself (not a pleasant thought), or I can share it
> with those of the Stata community who have an interest.
> But since I am not the originator of the commands I do not
> know how to proceed. Hence, what is the proper way to
> proceed? Should I send the updated files to those who
> first wrote the programs, or what should I do?
The first step would be to contact the original authors and
seek their opinion. They can take over those changes and
mention you in the acknowledgements or make you co-author
(either because you made major changes or because they are
no longer interested in maintaining the command, and want
to hand that over to you).
If they do not respond you can submit the new version to
SSC under a new name (typically -xtpmg2- or -getcmds2-)
and in the acknowledgements add the appropriate credits
to the original author(s).
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