authorship and citation

Is there a point at which the original developer should not stay on the author

list?

Authorship is not just about code.  For example, there are functions in R which
have been completely recoded, but the design and documentation remain.
Copyright can apply to designs and there is shading between
inspiration and infringement.   And many of us believe that inspiration
should be credited as a moral even if not a legal obligation.

"Once an author on CRAN, always an author on CRAN"* doesn't sound a bad maxim to work to.


*This statement should be cited** as
S L R Ellison, C L Dodgson, 'RE: [Rd] authorship and citation'. r-devel mailing list, 2015 with 
Acknowledgements: B Ripley, R-Core, S Urbanek for helpful remarks 

**following its own precepts :)


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