Credit matters

Sunday, February 11, 2007 by Dave Winer.

In most intellectual and creative fields they call taking credit for someone else's work plagiarism. It's an ugly word, which is good, because it is an ugly act.  

For some reason programmers are supposed to not care about credit for their accomplishments. The idea almost certainly came from someone who wanted to take credit for someone else's work. Creative people of all ilks share this one thing, they want credit. That's why the credits in a movie or an album are so long. That's why when someone receives an award they thank the people who made it possible. Credit matters. 

When a reporter makes light of this, and I've seen them do it, ask how they'd feel if you ran their most popular article on your website with your name on it.  

This really came home when I met with Richard Stallman a couple of months ago. I was surprised to find out that he cared who created a piece of software. To him the act of authorship was important. I had been led to believe the opposite. How about that.