UsedBy Field: Use or reuse

[MD668TN]

Hi,
in our team there's a little dispute on what the "usedBy" field should hold and i'd be grateful if you could help us understand.
Is it meant to hold:

• the list of the administrations that UTILIZE the software ("as testimonals" - so that a SW with 3000 users could be more appealing to reuse)
• or the list of the administrations that are REUSING the SW?

In the second case i think the owner should be cut off from this list (as not taking in reuse but owning the code) and
checking some examples on github it does not look to work like this. Many colleagues are still in doubt though, so could you please give us a quick clarification? Many thanks

[libremente]

Hi @MD668TN, thanks for raising this point.
In this same repo there are many questions regarding the "proper" use of usedBy which means that we should find a better way to explain it. There is also a proposal to deprecate/remove the key .

Anyway, to reply to your points:

or the list of the administrations that are REUSING the SW?

That was precisely the original intent: Public Administrations could declare software reuse by merely opening a Pull Request and inserting their name.

the list of the administrations that UTILIZE the software ("as testimonals" - so that a SW with 3000 users could be more appealing to reuse)

What do you mean by "users"? How do you keep track of them? Is it a SaaS? If yes, then publiccode.yml is out of scope.

[MD668TN]

Thanks so much for the quick and clarifying reply @libremente,

just a final detail, please:
in general, do you think the owner of the software should be in the list "usedBy"?
I guess it would be using the SW without a reuse and as far as the field description states I would add it to the list along with the institutions reusing it.
Is it fine from your POV?

Many many thanks again

[libremente]

I would go simply in this way:

• if the owner of the software is also actively using it then I think it's fine to list it in the usedBy field;
• if the owner is not using the software but just publishing it for reuse then no.

WDYT?

[MD668TN]

Pure common sense @libremente.
Thanks so much, really appreciated your help. All the best