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Re: GFortran citation
- From: Tobias Burnus <burnus at net-b dot de>
- To: Alex Couce <acouce at cnb dot csic dot es>
- Cc: fortran at gcc dot gnu dot org, law at redhat dot com
- Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2010 13:40:03 +0200
- Subject: Re: GFortran citation
- References: <20100821174246.84pdzaii8o40ccog@webmail.csic.es>
Alex Couce wrote:
I'm preparing a manuscript for being published in a scientific
journal, and I used GFortran for run some simulations. As long as I'm
grateful to you people for providing this valuable tool for free to
the community, I would like to give you credit by including a citation
on the paper. How shall I do that?
The question was asked before, cf.
http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/fortran/2010-04/msg00287.html, and the answers were:
* I think "GFortran, Gnu compiler collection (gcc)" Version 4.4.3 or
what ever version number would be sufficient.
* I would think that one should contact an editor of the journal or
publication for the proper citation format [1]. That being said, at a
minimui, it is 'GNU Compiler Collection' and I'd would include
http://gcc.gnu.org/.
It also depends whether it is more a compiler comparison paper - in
which case the version number and a proper citation in the literature
list is required - or whether the simulation just happens to be compiled
with gfortran (instead of another Fortran compiler). For the former, you
need a proper citation including the version number - following the
journal's style. For the latter, you could do the same or you could just
mention GNU Fortran (gfortran) and the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) in
the text or in the acknowledgement.
Due to the way GCC (and gfortran) was developed, there is no scientific
journal article which can be cited (as often asked by creators of
scientific software) - and due to the large number of developers,
thanking individual developers is also not practical.*
Tobias
PS: By the way, you have already acknowledged GNU Fortran and the GNU
Compiler Collection when writing this question ("I'm grateful to you
people for providing this valuable tool"). Thanks for that!
* Interestingly, if a package becomes widely used and gets older, one
urge to cite it somehow drops; for instance, I have never cited LAPACK -
or have seen a paper citing it - even though the authors ask for it,
cf. http://www.netlib.org/lapack/faq.html#1.3 - on the other hand, the
wide spread use of LAPACK is already an acknowledgement.