## Authorship policy for \<software project\>

\<Software project\> distinguishes between contributors to the software, and authors of the software.

We define as **contributors** every person who contributed their own work to the project, with the intention to benefit the project, in one or more of the following contribution areas:

- the conceptualization of the software;

- the source code, documentation and metadata, test code, setup or build configuration of the software;

- maintaining the software;

- safeguarding the continued existence or sustainability of the software project.

We define as **authors** every person who has made a **substantial** contribution in one or more of the contribution areas defined above.

Authorship is determined \[for the \<software project\> project, independently of individual versions of \<software project\> | for each version of \<software project\> that is \[tagged | released | published\]\]. To qualify for authorship, contributors make a substantial contribution as defined for each of the relevant contribution areas as:

- Conceptualization of the software: \<define\>

- Source code or documentation or metadata or test code or setup configuration or build configuration of the software: \<define\>

- Maintenance of the software: \<define\>

- Safeguarding the continued existence or sustainability of the software project: \<define\>

Contributors lose authorship status if and when:

- For conceptualization of the software, they \<define\>

- For source code or documentation or metadata or test code or setup configuration or build configuration of the software, they \<define\>

- For maintenance of the software, they \<define\>

- For safeguarding the continued existence or sustainability of the software project, they \<define\>

By becoming an author, contributors assert knowledge of the authorship criteria and guidelines and accept the responsibilities that come with it. \<Add any legal prerequisites that apply.\>

Information about current authors is recorded and publicized:

- in \[the citation metadata file `CITATION.cff` in the source code repository at \<URL\>\];

- in \[the section “Authors” on the \<software project website\> at \<URL\>\];

- in \[publications of \<software project\> made \<on Zenodo\> if they are an author of the \[version that is being published | software at the time of publication\]\].

Past authors are acknowledged as such:

- in \[the section “Authors”, subsection “Past authors”, on the \<software project website\> at \<URL\>\].

All contributors are acknowledged as such with their contribution roles, and independently of their status as authors:

- in \[the \<citation metadata file `CITATION.cff`\> in the source code repository at \<URL\>\];

- in \[the `README.md` file in the source code repository at \<URL\>\];

- in \[the section “Contributors” on the \<software project website\> at \<URL\>\].

Decisions to acknowledge authorship are made \[by the \<software project\> steering committee before each publication of a new version | by public vote on an issue to acknowledge authorship for an individual | by any maintainer through accepting changes made to `CITATION.cff` in a merge request\].

Conflicts with regard to authorship should be reported to the legal owners of the software at \<authorship@software-project.org\>. They will be resolved following the \<software project\> governance process as described at \<URL\>.

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This authorship policy is based on the ReSA Guidelines *Research Software Authorship* (see https://www.researchsoft.org/tf-authorship-contribution/).