[wgjordan]

This is designed specifically for researchers in academic institutions that have quite narrowly-defined mechanisms for 'getting credit' that can be formally applied towards career advancement, tenure review, etc., where by definition there are not 'a variety of ways for one to get credit'. Changing those evaluation mechanisms to better support recognizing software development for its "inherent" or naive value would be ideal, but is not a practical option for non-tenured researchers who need to work within existing advancement systems. Anyone outside of those systems would not find this form of publication useful at all - exactly why it is self-described as an academic 'hack' and not intended for general-purpose software development.

[argonaut]

The problem with being so openly self-described as a merely a way to get credit is: you're not evaluated on how many publications you get. You're evaluated on how many top publications you get.

There are a ton of 2nd tier and 3rd tier journals out there that are legitimately peer reviewed but won't help you get tenure / get academic positions, etc. This is a new journal so nobody will have heard of it (and therefore almost all will assume it's a 3rd tier venue). And I don't see that changing for a journal that is so narrowly focused on just publishing papers about open source software.

[JorgeGT]

This is correct. Specifically in my country, publications have to be published in journals of the first tertile of the corresponding category in the JCR index to get full credit.