Add a CITATION.cff file

[gregcorbett]

Add this may also be a timely oppurtunity to remove authorship info from individual files, and let the CITATION.cff file and commit history provide that info.

[GRyall]

good in theory - but the commit history does not cover all authorship. GocDB was previously maintained on SVN and the history from then was not imported. I agree we do not need it on every file, but we should acknowledge authorship that predates the use of git.

[davidmeredith]

good in theory - but the commit history does not cover all authorship. GocDB was previously maintained on SVN and the history from then was not imported. I agree we do not need it on every file, but we should acknowledge authorship that predates the use of git.

Thank you George for your consideration !

[GRyall]

Long time no see @davidmeredith - I hadn't realised you also haunt the GOCDB repo like me!

[tofu-rocketry]

Authorship info in individual files is a terrible way to track it. In many cases, the files have been subsequently edited without the headers being changed so the info is incomplete and therefore wrong.

Also bear in mind that the vast majority of work on GOCDB has been carried out during paid employment of UKRI and its predecessors, so individual authorship in those cases is a nice-to-note, not a legal necessity. The only non-UKRI staff contributions will have been after the code was added to Git, won't they?

So, I say, go for it. We can create a list of historic (i.e. pre-git) contributors separately to the actual code.