[Rd] legitimate use of :::

[John Fox]

Dear Duncan,

> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-devel-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-devel-bounces at r-
> project.org] On Behalf Of Duncan Murdoch
> Sent: Monday, August 26, 2013 2:24 PM
> To: Benjamin Hofner
> Cc: r-devel at r-project.org
> Subject: Re: [Rd] legitimate use of :::
> 
> On 26/08/2013 11:20 AM, Benjamin Hofner wrote:
> > Dear Duncan,
> >
> > thank you for the quick reply.
> >
> > Am 26.08.2013 16:47, schrieb Duncan Murdoch:
> > > On 26/08/2013 8:51 AM, Benjamin Hofner wrote:
> > >> Hi,
> > >>

. . .

> > This is a good solution. Do I need to specify the original License
> etc?
> > And what about a helper function such as stats:::n.knots? This will
> not
> > appear in the manual of my package. Is it sufficient in this case to
> > document the authorship in the source (and perhaps a README as you
> > suggested)?
> I think you want to give credit in a place where users will see it, not
> just in the source.  Our README solution isn't good for that, because
> most people will never know they have that file.
> 
> Duncan Murdoch

I've been giving credit in the Authors at R: field of the DESCRIPTION file and
via comments in the source code, but this isn't a good solution since the
first is non-specific and the second won't be read by users. 

Now that this practice will be much more frequent as a consequence of
eliminating ::: references, it would be nice to have a standard solution.
Maybe using the comment argument to person() in the Authors at R field makes
sense; I haven't tried this.

Best,
 John