On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 7:55 PM, Gabor Grothendieck <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:ggrothendieck@gmail.com">ggrothendieck@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<div><div></div><div class="h5">On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 7:20 PM, Dominick Samperi <<a href="mailto:djsamperi@gmail.com">djsamperi@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
> On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 6:37 PM, Gabor Grothendieck <<a href="mailto:ggrothendieck@gmail.com">ggrothendieck@gmail.com</a>><br>
> wrote:<br>
>><br>
>> On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 5:18 PM, Hadley Wickham <<a href="mailto:hadley@rice.edu">hadley@rice.edu</a>> wrote:<br>
>> >> Perhaps a wider community of R users can weigh in on a<br>
>> >> policy decision that was implicitly deemed acceptable on this<br>
>> >> thread. Namely, that it is fine to arbitrarily and<br>
>> >> for no reason deprecate the contributions of past<br>
>> >> authors, and as more progress is made, even more<br>
>> >> disparaging remarks can be added.<br>
>> ><br>
>> > What is disparaging about saying "a small portion of the code is based<br>
>> > on code written during 2005 and 2006 by Dominick Samperi"? I read this<br>
>> > as a factual statement saying that the current version of Rcpp is<br>
>> > based on, in a small way, your earlier work.<br>
>> ><br>
>> > For reference, a disparaging comment would be something like: "This<br>
>> > package was based code written by Hadley Wickham that made my eyes<br>
>> > bleed", or "The development of this package was driven by the godawful<br>
>> > code that Hadley wrote".<br>
>> ><br>
>><br>
>><br>
>> Its very difficult to truly assess relative contributions when you mix<br>
>> in design, coding, level of effort, promotion, etc. I would not<br>
>> focus on the single word "disparaging". I think the poster simply<br>
>> used the wrong word and perhaps what he meant was more along the lines<br>
>> of: as the creator of the package he presumably set the design (or<br>
>> significant elements of the design) for all subsequent work and in<br>
>> that respect even if its true that the number of lines he generated is<br>
>> relatively small compared to the current package, that phrase gives<br>
>> the misleading impression that his contribution was also small. There<br>
>> is a difference between something that is true and non-misleading and<br>
>> something that is true and misleading.<br>
><br>
> There is an important element of this discussion that is being overlooked,<br>
> namely, the timing. If indeed my contributions were minimal (and they<br>
> were not for the reasons you suggest) then why was it decided now,<br>
> for this particular release, to update my status? Why not the last<br>
> release? What changed? There were only a few new features added<br>
> to this release. What made the difference?<br>
><br>
> More importantly, as I suggested in my original post, this practice<br>
> sets an absurd precedent, one that motivated Stallman to write<br>
> the GNU manifesto (where he used the oxygen mask metaphor).<br>
> Should we reevaluate all contributors, present or past, and<br>
> adjust the level of deprecation on the<br>
> author line appropriately before each release?<br>
><br>
> I suspect that I have contributed far more than some of the<br>
> people listed on the author line. Does this mean that their<br>
> contributions should be discounted accordingly? If not,<br>
> why not?<br>
><br>
> Thanks for your courage. People who send supportive comments<br>
> tend to send them off-list, not wanting to state them publicly.<br>
><br>
<br>
</div></div>Just to be clear I have never used the package and am not truly<br>
commenting on this particular case but only the general ideas in this<br>
thread. Also I was not suggesting that the comments in the code were<br>
purposefully misleading, only that they might be misleading since they<br>
could be interpreted in terms of contribution even though they are<br>
stated in terms of lines of code. The author of the phrase may very<br>
well have felt that the current team had done a lot of work to add<br>
design ideas and develop and promote the software but perhaps the<br>
unfortunate way in how it was expressed in that phrase that came out<br>
as a seeming comment on the original creator's contribution rather<br>
than the intended comment on their own, presumably also significant,<br>
contribution.<br></blockquote><div><br>There is no reason given why this<br>should happen now, at this moment, and no explanation why <br>the same standard should not be applied to other package authors,<br>including other authors of Rcpp.<br>
<br>This is not about this particular case, it is about "general ideas"<br>along the lines of your original post.<br><br>Thanks,<br>Dominick<br> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<font color="#888888"><br>
--<br>
</font><div><div></div><div class="h5">Statistics & Software Consulting<br>
GKX Group, GKX Associates Inc.<br>
tel: 1-877-GKX-GROUP<br>
email: ggrothendieck at <a href="http://gmail.com" target="_blank">gmail.com</a><br>
</div></div></blockquote></div><br>