contributed code - copyright or other protections?

[BAKERWL at uwyo.edu]

I've contributed some code to grass (the r.le programs) not in an
official release, but via the grass/incoming directory on the moon.
There is a request in one of the README files that if the code is used
that a published article we wrote about the programs be cited.  Recently,
an article was published in the Journal of Vegetation Science (Vol. 5,
Issue 5, p. 731-742) that uses GRASS to calculate a number of indices
of landscape structure (their Table 2).  So far as I am aware, these
indices cannot be calculated in GRASS without using the r.le programs.
The authors, however, do not cite our article as requested, but just
cite GRASS in general.

Short of scientific etiquette, there may be nothing wrong with this,
and I may even be wrong about interpreting this as anything but an
oversight.  But, it does raise a concern in my mind that others who
contribute code may share.  Some code is contributed without any
request for citation as there is nothing to cite, other code is
associated with published work or documentation that could be cited.
Do any code contributors have thoughts about how we can achieve some
of the minor rewards of developing and contributing code (i.e., it
gets used), while still having a little protection against use without
citation?  Maybe this is only important to those of us in academia
and elsewhere where citation is a measure of our value.  Perhaps
I'm the only one concerned about this...

        Bill Baker
        Dept. of Geography
        Univ. of Wyoming
        Laramie, WY 82071