Should I ask to be mentioned in the credits in an open source project?

Question

I have read several post about how to give credit in open source projects, but none that target my question.

I have been working on an open source project for about a year now, and one of my latest editions has something that hasn't been implemented fully in any language (to my knowledge...). An author from a very popular project lauded me for my efforts and proceeded to implement those ideas in their project. Now, the algorithms aren't exactly the same, but I'm certain they could not have implemented without knowledge of my work. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the algorithms, when compiled to machine code, are ~95% the same.

As my project isn't that popular, the number of views per month is very low (less than 100, mostly attributed to myself as their is normally only 1 unique visitor per day.. i.e. myself), and right after they commented, there was over 100 views per day with 2 unique visitors. Shortly after, they published... Coincidence... I think not!

They have released it publicly and not stated my name anywhere (not even in the comments). Part of me is like "Who cares, it's open source and the community is better now", however the other side of me says "Wait just a second, every reputable project I come across is very forthcoming with credit because that encourages more actions by the community which is far better for the community."

So my question is twofold:

1. Should I even bother asking for a mention in the credits?

2. If so, how should I go about it?

Edit: I am looking for answer that draw on specific experience. I believe this question and the answers that follow will be beneficial to future users who come across similar situations where they have put in a considerable amount of work and would like to show other professionals some relevant experience.

Answer 1

This is thinking a bit outside the box: you could write a paper about your algorithm, publish it (maybe in some scientific journal, on arXiv, just on your personal blog, or maybe just inside your project), and reference it in your project. Then ask the other author to do the same.

Basically, you have now provided free documentation to their project (by describing how and why the algorithm they implemented works), why would they reject this?

The fact that your name is now associated with that project as inventor of the algorithm now becomes simply a side-effect of having improved both your project's and the other project's documentation.

Answer 2

As you spent a year working on this thing and pioneered this feature for your own project, I do not think it is unreasonable to want to be included in the credits. Simply ask this author politely to consider adding you to the credits if he found your work helpful. I would think most fellow open source contributors would understand completely. Simply asking is free and quite likely to give you the outcome you want.

If for some reason they do not want to do this, as mentioned in the comments you could look to see if your license gives you any recourse. However that will not be fun for anyone involved, so there you might have to decide it is worth the hassle.

Answer 3

Yes, you should bother because you do not know how things evolve in the future. Maybe the author one day decides to create a commercial software from your code.

What you are after is not the license but the copyright. You can provide your code under any license you like but you hold the copyright since the moment you conceived the code as long as noone else had done before.

I think you should add a copyright message in your code under the license message and email the author letting him know that although the code is open and free to use or rewrite, it comes with some rights attached to the author. So, they are required to mention who has the copyright.

I have seen in numerous open source packages copyright messages and attribution to the original authors regardless of the options the license provides.