Re: How to properly cite PSPP in a publication?

[Ben Pfaff]

On Mon, Sep 14, 2015 at 04:00:57AM +0000, Charles Johnson wrote:
> Hello. Making a short presentation of PSPP I was on the problem of how to 
> cite correctly PSPP.
> 
>  Using the APA 6th edition format, I did the following:
> 
> "Free Software Foundation (2015). GNU PSPP (Version 0.8.5) [Computer 
> Software]. Boston, MA"
> or
> "GNU Project (2015). GNU PSPP (Version 0.8.5) [Computer Software]. Free 
> Software Foundation. Boston, MA"
> 
> In both you can be added: "Available from: https://www.gnu.org/software/pspp/";

Of those two, the latter citation seems more appropriate to me, because
PSPP is directly part of the GNU Project (not the Free Software
Foundation).

> I have reviewed the following thread: 
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/pspp-users/2011-11/msg00017.html, 
> But really I'm not clear as I do.
> 
> In other software: 
> 
> For example, IBM recommends for SPSS: 
> http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21476197
> 
> In "R", using the following command "citation ()" recommended: R Core Team 
> (2015). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation 
> for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. URL https://www.R-project.org/.
> 
> In GNU Octave "citation" command (cite a manual): John W. Eaton, David 
> Bateman, Søren Hauberg, Rik Wehbring (2015). GNU Octave version 4.0.0 manual: 
> a high-level interactive language for numerical computations. URL 
> http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/doc/interpreter/
> 
> Depending on the project, citing the author of a manual, or the software 
> itself. Any ideas?

I think that you should consider whether what you're citing is text from
a manual or use of a program.  Citing the manual is more
straightforward, though, since it has a clear title and list of authors.