In similar situations I've either used a "BSD with attribution" style license (i.e. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing/BSD_with_Attribution http://fedorapr

In similar situations I've either used a "BSD with attribution" style license (i.e. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing/BSD_with_Attribution http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing/BSD_with_Attribution) or simply included a "How To Cite" section in the README. For example, ImageJ is popular in research and the docs include a citation recommendation: Abramoff, M.D., Magalhaes, P.J., Ram, S.J. "Image Processing with ImageJ". Biophotonics International, volume 11, issue 7, pp. 36-42, 2004. Another license I've seen used in academia is Matt Might's CRAPL (http://matt.might.net/articles/crapl/ http://matt.might.net/articles/crapl/), which is in some ways very well-suited to the academic publishing world but is pretty tongue-in-cheek. In my experience (in physics and materials science) most academics want to cite your software if it was useful. Make it clear and obvious, and you'll probably get citations.