FAIRsharing record for: FAIR Principles for Research Software - R2. Software includes qualified references to other software

This FAIRsharing record describes: 'R2. Software includes qualified references to other software' states that software is rarely standalone and in most cases is built upon other software (e.g., dependencies), and should include appropriate references to other software (e.g., requirements, imports, libraries) which are necessary to compile and run the software. “Qualified” here means specifying the authoritative source for an identifier, possibly including a resolvable reference to further information about the source. To follow this principle, it is desirable but not required that the other software referenced implements the FAIR4RS Principles. In many programming languages, base methods or functions take a reference to a named entity, possibly in combination with a version number or qualifying domain and resolves this to a source. This principle goes beyond this in calling for qualified references to external dependencies, meaning that the reference itself resolves to the source via the qualifying authority. This guiding principle calls for qualified references in software to other software (in aid of reuse). Principle I2 calls for qualified references to anything other than software (in aid of interoperability).