Yeah, I agree. I do think it’s unlikely he was a major contributor to his paper, so it’s more about endorsement. Agree that if someone did serious work on a paper and then dies, they should probably still be included (though IMO they should be included with an explicit footnote saying they died during the writing of the paper and might not endorse everything in the final version).
Supposing he was a serious contributor to the paper (which seems unlikely IMO), it seems bad to cut his contribution just because he died.
So, I think the right choice here will depend on how much being an author on this paper is about endorsement or about contribution.
(Even if he didn’t contribute much of the content, I still think it might be fine to keep him as an author.)
It’s unfortunate that authorship can mean these two pretty different things.
Yeah, I agree. I do think it’s unlikely he was a major contributor to his paper, so it’s more about endorsement. Agree that if someone did serious work on a paper and then dies, they should probably still be included (though IMO they should be included with an explicit footnote saying they died during the writing of the paper and might not endorse everything in the final version).