Wikidata:Property proposal/software developer

software house

Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Generic

Not done

Description	company that developed or is developing the software
Represents	software company (Q1058914)
Data type	Item
Domain	software (Q7397)
Example	Microsoft Windows (Q1406) → Microsoft (Q2283)
See also	programmer (P943)

Motivation

Currently, there is programmer (P943) for individual people, but nothing for companies. This property is not a subproperty of developer (P178) because developer (P178) is a subproperty of creator (P170), while a software house that is currently developing a software can be different from the creator. Malore (talk) 00:12, 21 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

@Malore: I don't understand, how the developer is different from creator? Ederporto (talk) 02:10, 21 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Ederporto: A developer intended as in developer (P178) can't be different from the creator, but a software developer can be different from the creator because the software can be initially developed by a company or a person and at a later time by another company or person. The first developer is also the creator, but the second one not--Malore (talk) 02:39, 21 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Malore: If both were involved in the creation, both development companies are the creators, maybe a ranking or a qualifier could solve? Or adapting the description in developer (P178)? Good contributions, Ederporto (talk) 20:16, 21 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Ederporto: "software house" can be considered as the creator or the "maintainer" (present or past) of the software: it should be for software what standards body (P1462) is for standards. Therefore, "software house" and creator (P170) are two different and separate properties. If two companies are involved in the creation of a software, both companies should be listed under creator (P170) but also under "software house", while if a company is involved in a later development of the software it should be listed only under "software house". Maybe another approach could be to use "software house" only for creators (call it "software house2"), and if a software is bought by another company or somehow changes developer, we add this "software house2" to the single versions developed by this second company. For example, if Windows is boought by Google, the Windows "software house2" would remain Microsoft, but an hypothetical "Windows 11" "software house2" would be Google. --Malore (talk) 18:13, 21 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Ederporto: Maybe what you wanted to know is how to distinguish different values listed under the same property. There's no need to do it, but in case of multiple software houses it should be used start time (P580) and end time (P582) qualifiers.--Malore (talk) 20:03, 21 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Malore: Can a simple change in the description of programmer (P943) solve it? Your initial argument was around the individual/companies, right? The asturian description of P943 does that, so I think english can too, right? Ederporto (talk) 20:16, 21 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Ederporto: Also the English label said "person or studio", but I removed "studio" because a company is not a programmer and because property constraints require the value to be a human. We could change the label and the property constraints, but it means change the property.--Malore (talk) 20:51, 21 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Informatics has more than 50 participants and couldn't be pinged. Please post on the WikiProject's talk page instead. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 15:11, 24 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Use developer (P178) for the software developer, as is already the case. Software developers are creators as per the dictionary definition: [creator]. Danrok (talk) 16:26, 24 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Danrok: A software developer who created the first version of a software is a creator, but if he started writing code only in a later time I think it can't be considered the creator of the software, but only the creator of some specific version of the software. However, this approach doesn't allow to view the current developer of the software directly from the item representing the software, but we must visit the item representing the last version of the software to do it.--Malore (talk) 16:50, 24 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Danrok:Furthermore, developer (P178) has a broader scope. See this RFC--Malore (talk) 00:57, 29 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Strong oppose. developer (P178) is ok for that. I don't see why creator (P170) should only apply for the original creator. There can be more than one creator of something. If a software was originally build by X and if later developed further by Y, than both are creators of it, since both contributed to make the endproduct. Also both share the IP about it, what is an important aspect of P170. Software house is on the one hand specific to (mostly proprietary) software – what I consider to specific for this problem. At the same time it a very vaguely term, that isn't defined anywhere. Having to many hardly distincting properties makes writing queries harder or up to impossible. If you need more finegrained information than developer (P178) use qualifiers and ranks. -- MichaelSchoenitzer (talk) 11:22, 26 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@MichaelSchoenitzer: I don't agree with your definition of creator because someone who refurbished or enlarged a building is not considered the creator. However, which are the hardly distincting properties? developer (P178) is a completely different property, rarely used for software but mainly for concrete things. Furthermore, we already have programmer (P943) for people, so my proposal was only to add an equivalent property for companies. See also this RFC--Malore (talk) 00:43, 29 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Duplicate David (talk) 12:48, 26 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@David:Duplicate of what? developer (P178) is a completely different property with a much broader scope that is rarely used for software. See also this RFC--Malore (talk) 00:46, 29 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]