On 9/16/2006 10:42 PM, Logan Lewis wrote: > It is my understanding that R is licensed under the GPL with the > exception of a few header files for the purposes of linking binary code > with R under non-GPL licenses. > > However, the R-base package itself is licensed under the GPL, as are > many (but not all) packages in CRAN. Furthermore, basically any R > script will use functionality from R-base. As I understand it, the > situation isn't clear as to the licensing restrictions on R scripts > which use R-base (or any other GPL package). The FSF's FAQ on the > issue says the following (of course, this is just their > interpretation): > > (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#IfInterpreterIsGPL) > > "[...]Another similar and very common case is to provide libraries with > the interpreter which are themselves interpreted. For instance, Perl > comes with many Perl modules, and a Java implementation comes with many > Java classes. These libraries and the programs that call them are > always dynamically linked together. A consequence is that if you choose > to use GPL'd Perl modules or Java classes in your program, you must > release the program in a GPL-compatible way, regardless of the license > used in the Perl or Java interpreter that the combined Perl or Java > program will run on." > > Clearly, having R scripts (and basically all R add-on packages) be > required to have GPL-compatible licenses is not the intent (especially > considering the LGPLed header files mentioned above). R's position is > somewhat unique in having much of the base functionality interpreted. > In practice, this legal interpretation (IANAL, etc) would require > essentially all R packages and other R scripts to be licensed in a > GPL-compatible way. Is a legal exception in order here? > > My apologies if this question is more appropriate for r-users or has > been answered elsewhere.
I'm not sure what you are asking, but in general R's GPL license is completely irrelevant unless you are distributing R. If you're writing a package and distributing only your own work, you can license it as you like. If you want to distribute R (or GPL'd parts of it, or a GPL'd package) as part of another project, then that project will need to be GPL'd. The header files are LGPL'd because you would need to incorporate them into your package to distribute a binary. The LGPL allows you to do that, without GPL'ing your package. IANAL, etc. Duncan Murdoch ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
