posted on 2013-08-31, 20:10authored byMatthew G. Knepley, Jed Brown, Lois Curfman McInnes, Barry SmithBarry Smith
Properly citing academic publications that describe software libraries and algorithms is the way that open source scientific library users ''pay'' to use the free software. With large multifaceted libraries and applications that use several such libraries, even the conscientious user ends up citing publications in error or missing relevant publications. Some open source developers list appropriate citations on their website or in their documentation. Based on a recent addition to the PETSc numerical software libraries, we suggest an alternative model where the library itself generates the bibtex items based on {\bf exactly} what algorithms and portions of the code are used in the application.