[R-pkg-devel] Licensing of an R package

[Chris Brien]

Dear list members,

I have come to realize that my understanding of free software licensing was 
somewhat naïve. The problem is that I now find that, in spite of spending quite 
a bit of time reading about various licenses on the web, I have been unable to 
identify a suitable license for the situation that I have with one of my 
packages.

I am solely responsible for the development of my package, `foo' say. However, 
most functions in `foo' call functions from a proprietary package, `bar' say , 
the latter not being available from an online software repository and 
consisting of R functions that call routines in a library. That is, `foo' 
enhances `bar'.

I had thought that a GPL licence was appropriate because (1) `foo' is free 
software and (ii) I do not distribute `bar' with `foo'. That is, I am 
distributing only free software.  However, I have come to understand that this 
is not the case because a free software package linked with a proprietary 
package does not satisfy the requirements to be GPL.

I have found it difficult to work out a license that might cover my package 
because much of the discussion online covers cases that are the opposite of 
mine i.e. cases where `foo' is proprietary and `bar' is freeware. I can 
appreciate why this needs to be avoided.

I can also understand that a disadvantage of what I am doing is that it tends 
to entrench the use of such software. While I agree that it is desirable that 
`bar' be replaced with free software, unfortunately `bar' has functionality 
that is currently infeasible to replace with free software. At least I am not 
profiting from the enhancements that I have made.

I am hoping that someone more experienced in software development and licensing 
issues can suggest a license type that might be suitable for `foo' such that at 
least the enhancements that it incorporates remain `free'?

Cheers, 

  Chris Brien

Adjunct Senior Lecturer in Statistics
-
Phenomics and Bioinformatics Research Centre
University of South Australia
GPO Box 2471
ADELAIDE  5001  South Australia
Phone:  +61 8 8302 5535   Fax:  +61 8 8302 5785
Email:   chris.br...@unisa.edu.au 
WEB page:   
CRICOS No 00121B 

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Re: [R-pkg-devel] Licensing of an R package

[Stefan McKinnon Høj-Edwards]

Hi Chris,

Just for clarification, there are at least two aspects that affect how you
can license your package.
A) Do you distribute `bar` with your package, or are you simply calling
routines in `bar`?
B) What is the exact license of `bar`?
C) Is there a reason for this secrecy of `bar`? If we knew what it was,
somebody on this list might have experience with it or similar.

If `bar` is not freely available, it doesn't seem your package would be
accepted to CRAN (do correct me if I am wrong).

Kindly,
Stefan McKinnon Hoj-Edwards

Stefan McKinnon Høj-Edwards
ph.d. Genetics
+44 (0)776 231 2464
+45 2888 6598
Skype: stefan_edwards

2018-01-19 8:31 GMT+00:00 Chris Brien :

> Dear list members,
>
> I have come to realize that my understanding of free software licensing
> was somewhat naïve. The problem is that I now find that, in spite of
> spending quite a bit of time reading about various licenses on the web, I
> have been unable to identify a suitable license for the situation that I
> have with one of my packages.
>
> I am solely responsible for the development of my package, `foo' say.
> However, most functions in `foo' call functions from a proprietary package,
> `bar' say , the latter not being available from an online software
> repository and consisting of R functions that call routines in a library.
> That is, `foo' enhances `bar'.
>
> I had thought that a GPL licence was appropriate because (1) `foo' is free
> software and (ii) I do not distribute `bar' with `foo'. That is, I am
> distributing only free software.  However, I have come to understand that
> this is not the case because a free software package linked with a
> proprietary package does not satisfy the requirements to be GPL.
>
> I have found it difficult to work out a license that might cover my
> package because much of the discussion online covers cases that are the
> opposite of mine i.e. cases where `foo' is proprietary and `bar' is
> freeware. I can appreciate why this needs to be avoided.
>
> I can also understand that a disadvantage of what I am doing is that it
> tends to entrench the use of such software. While I agree that it is
> desirable that `bar' be replaced with free software, unfortunately `bar'
> has functionality that is currently infeasible to replace with free
> software. At least I am not profiting from the enhancements that I have
> made.
>
> I am hoping that someone more experienced in software development and
> licensing issues can suggest a license type that might be suitable for
> `foo' such that at least the enhancements that it incorporates remain
> `free'?
>
> Cheers,
>
>   Chris Brien
>
> Adjunct Senior Lecturer in Statistics
> -
> Phenomics and Bioinformatics Research Centre
> University of South Australia
> GPO Box 2471
> ADELAIDE  5001  South Australia
> Phone:  +61 8 8302 5535   Fax:  +61 8 8302 5785
> Email:   chris.br...@unisa.edu.au
> WEB page:  
> CRICOS No 00121B
>
> __
> R-package-devel@r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel
>

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Re: [R-pkg-devel] Licensing of an R package

[Barry Rowlingson]

Chris,

 you've not said what *you* would like the license for your software to do.
You could release the software under a "public domain", "no rights
reserved" style license, and then if people want to link it with
proprietary materials then nothing can stop them. But it wouldn't stop
people commercialising (what was) your code, modifying it, re-releasing it
as binary and without source, and so on.

 Once you've decided which things you want to permit or restrict under your
license then you can see if there's a pre-existing one that matches your
requirements, or whether you have to write one yourself! Good luck with
that option!

 https://opensource.org/license/MIT is one of the more permissive open
source licenses - check the others on there for more info.

Barry





On Fri, Jan 19, 2018 at 8:31 AM, Chris Brien 
wrote:

> Dear list members,
>
> I have come to realize that my understanding of free software licensing
> was somewhat naïve. The problem is that I now find that, in spite of
> spending quite a bit of time reading about various licenses on the web, I
> have been unable to identify a suitable license for the situation that I
> have with one of my packages.
>
> I am solely responsible for the development of my package, `foo' say.
> However, most functions in `foo' call functions from a proprietary package,
> `bar' say , the latter not being available from an online software
> repository and consisting of R functions that call routines in a library.
> That is, `foo' enhances `bar'.
>
> I had thought that a GPL licence was appropriate because (1) `foo' is free
> software and (ii) I do not distribute `bar' with `foo'. That is, I am
> distributing only free software.  However, I have come to understand that
> this is not the case because a free software package linked with a
> proprietary package does not satisfy the requirements to be GPL.
>
> I have found it difficult to work out a license that might cover my
> package because much of the discussion online covers cases that are the
> opposite of mine i.e. cases where `foo' is proprietary and `bar' is
> freeware. I can appreciate why this needs to be avoided.
>
> I can also understand that a disadvantage of what I am doing is that it
> tends to entrench the use of such software. While I agree that it is
> desirable that `bar' be replaced with free software, unfortunately `bar'
> has functionality that is currently infeasible to replace with free
> software. At least I am not profiting from the enhancements that I have
> made.
>
> I am hoping that someone more experienced in software development and
> licensing issues can suggest a license type that might be suitable for
> `foo' such that at least the enhancements that it incorporates remain
> `free'?
>
> Cheers,
>
>   Chris Brien
>
> Adjunct Senior Lecturer in Statistics
> -
> Phenomics and Bioinformatics Research Centre
> University of South Australia
> GPO Box 2471
> ADELAIDE  5001  South Australia
> Phone:  +61 8 8302 5535   Fax:  +61 8 8302 5785
> Email:   chris.br...@unisa.edu.au
> WEB page:  
> CRICOS No 00121B
>
> __
> R-package-devel@r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel
>

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Re: [R-pkg-devel] Licensing of an R package

[Chris Brien]

Hi Stefan,

Here are the answers:

A) No, I am simply calling routines.
B) By proprietary I mean that it is a commercial package.
C) No, it seemed better to use short, distinctive names for the two packages 
and to focus on the essential issues, namely that `bar' is a commercial package 
and that `foo' is not.

Thanks for your interest.

Cheers,

  Chris


From: stefan.mckinnon.edwa...@gmail.com 
[mailto:stefan.mckinnon.edwa...@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Stefan McKinnon 
Høj-Edwards
Sent: Friday, 19 January 2018 7:58 PM
To: Chris Brien
Cc: r-package-devel@r-project.org
Subject: Re: [R-pkg-devel] Licensing of an R package

Hi Chris,

Just for clarification, there are at least two aspects that affect how you can 
license your package. 

A) Do you distribute `bar` with your package, or are you simply calling 
routines in `bar`? 
B) What is the exact license of `bar`?
C) Is there a reason for this secrecy of `bar`? If we knew what it was, 
somebody on this list might have experience with it or similar.

If `bar` is not freely available, it doesn't seem your package would be 
accepted to CRAN (do correct me if I am wrong).

Kindly,
Stefan McKinnon Hoj-Edwards


Stefan McKinnon Høj-Edwards
ph.d. Genetics
+44 (0)776 231 2464
+45 2888 6598
Skype: stefan_edwards

2018-01-19 8:31 GMT+00:00 Chris Brien :
Dear list members,

I have come to realize that my understanding of free software licensing was 
somewhat naïve. The problem is that I now find that, in spite of spending quite 
a bit of time reading about various licenses on the web, I have been unable to 
identify a suitable license for the situation that I have with one of my 
packages.

I am solely responsible for the development of my package, `foo' say. However, 
most functions in `foo' call functions from a proprietary package, `bar' say , 
the latter not being available from an online software repository and 
consisting of R functions that call routines in a library. That is, `foo' 
enhances `bar'.

I had thought that a GPL licence was appropriate because (1) `foo' is free 
software and (ii) I do not distribute `bar' with `foo'. That is, I am 
distributing only free software.  However, I have come to understand that this 
is not the case because a free software package linked with a proprietary 
package does not satisfy the requirements to be GPL.

I have found it difficult to work out a license that might cover my package 
because much of the discussion online covers cases that are the opposite of 
mine i.e. cases where `foo' is proprietary and `bar' is freeware. I can 
appreciate why this needs to be avoided.

I can also understand that a disadvantage of what I am doing is that it tends 
to entrench the use of such software. While I agree that it is desirable that 
`bar' be replaced with free software, unfortunately `bar' has functionality 
that is currently infeasible to replace with free software. At least I am not 
profiting from the enhancements that I have made.

I am hoping that someone more experienced in software development and licensing 
issues can suggest a license type that might be suitable for `foo' such that at 
least the enhancements that it incorporates remain `free'?

Cheers,

  Chris Brien

Adjunct Senior Lecturer in Statistics
-
Phenomics and Bioinformatics Research Centre
University of South Australia
GPO Box 2471
ADELAIDE  5001  South Australia
Phone:  +61 8 8302 5535   Fax:  +61 8 8302 5785
Email:   chris.br...@unisa.edu.au
WEB page:  
CRICOS No 00121B

__
R-package-devel@r-project.org mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel

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Re: [R-pkg-devel] Licensing of an R package

[Brian G. Peterson]

Chris, on C) even commercial packages have licenses.  If the commercial 
package contains a linkable software library, that license is very 
important in this discussion, because it tells you (us) what you can do 
with that library.


It may say that you can distribute binary code you build with that 
library, or that you can link other proprietary software to it, or that 
you can do neither of those things.


So the exact license of 'bar' is important to this discussion as well.

There are a number of R packages on CRAN that link to commercial 
libraries or require a commercial library to be available (such as 
optimization routines), but the exact license of the commercial library 
needs to be known, and the desired behavior needs to be permitted.


Regards,

Brian

On 01/19/2018 04:19 AM, Chris Brien wrote:

Hi Stefan,

Here are the answers:

A) No, I am simply calling routines.
B) By proprietary I mean that it is a commercial package.
C) No, it seemed better to use short, distinctive names for the two packages 
and to focus on the essential issues, namely that `bar' is a commercial package 
and that `foo' is not.

Thanks for your interest.

Cheers,

   Chris


From: stefan.mckinnon.edwa...@gmail.com 
[mailto:stefan.mckinnon.edwa...@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Stefan McKinnon 
Høj-Edwards
Sent: Friday, 19 January 2018 7:58 PM
To: Chris Brien
Cc: r-package-devel@r-project.org
Subject: Re: [R-pkg-devel] Licensing of an R package

Hi Chris,

Just for clarification, there are at least two aspects that affect how you can 
license your package.

A) Do you distribute `bar` with your package, or are you simply calling 
routines in `bar`?
B) What is the exact license of `bar`?
C) Is there a reason for this secrecy of `bar`? If we knew what it was, 
somebody on this list might have experience with it or similar.

If `bar` is not freely available, it doesn't seem your package would be 
accepted to CRAN (do correct me if I am wrong).

Kindly,
Stefan McKinnon Hoj-Edwards


Stefan McKinnon Høj-Edwards
ph.d. Genetics
+44 (0)776 231 2464
+45 2888 6598
Skype: stefan_edwards

2018-01-19 8:31 GMT+00:00 Chris Brien :
Dear list members,

I have come to realize that my understanding of free software licensing was 
somewhat naïve. The problem is that I now find that, in spite of spending quite 
a bit of time reading about various licenses on the web, I have been unable to 
identify a suitable license for the situation that I have with one of my 
packages.

I am solely responsible for the development of my package, `foo' say. However, 
most functions in `foo' call functions from a proprietary package, `bar' say , 
the latter not being available from an online software repository and 
consisting of R functions that call routines in a library. That is, `foo' 
enhances `bar'.

I had thought that a GPL licence was appropriate because (1) `foo' is free 
software and (ii) I do not distribute `bar' with `foo'. That is, I am 
distributing only free software.  However, I have come to understand that this 
is not the case because a free software package linked with a proprietary 
package does not satisfy the requirements to be GPL.

I have found it difficult to work out a license that might cover my package 
because much of the discussion online covers cases that are the opposite of 
mine i.e. cases where `foo' is proprietary and `bar' is freeware. I can 
appreciate why this needs to be avoided.

I can also understand that a disadvantage of what I am doing is that it tends 
to entrench the use of such software. While I agree that it is desirable that 
`bar' be replaced with free software, unfortunately `bar' has functionality 
that is currently infeasible to replace with free software. At least I am not 
profiting from the enhancements that I have made.

I am hoping that someone more experienced in software development and licensing 
issues can suggest a license type that might be suitable for `foo' such that at 
least the enhancements that it incorporates remain `free'?

Cheers,

   Chris Brien

Adjunct Senior Lecturer in Statistics
-
Phenomics and Bioinformatics Research Centre
University of South Australia
GPO Box 2471
ADELAIDE  5001  South Australia
Phone:  +61 8 8302 5535   Fax:  +61 8 8302 5785
Email:   chris.br...@unisa.edu.au
WEB page:  
CRICOS No 00121B

__
R-package-devel@r-project.org mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel

__
R-package-devel@r-project.org mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel




--
Brian G. Peterson
http://braverock.com/brian/
Ph: 773-459-4973
IM: bgpbraverock

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Re: [R-pkg-devel] Licensing of an R package

[Chris Brien]

Hi Barry,

Ideally, I would prefer that my package remain open source.

However, I have considered MIT and the two BSD licenses and I understand that 
they are permissive. I have not ruled out using one of them.

The thing about those licenses is that I have not been able to find anything on 
the web about linking a proprietary and free package under those licenses. The 
information is not nearly as comprehensive as it is for GPL licenses.

The problem as I see it is that they are GPL compatible and so I do not 
understand how that can be the case and that you can apply the licence in my 
situation.

I agree that to write your own license is rather daunting. I would much prefer 
to use a pre-existing license.

Thanks for your comments.

Cheers,

  Chris



From: b.rowling...@gmail.com [mailto:b.rowling...@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Barry 
Rowlingson
Sent: Friday, 19 January 2018 8:00 PM
To: Chris Brien
Cc: r-package-devel@r-project.org
Subject: Re: [R-pkg-devel] Licensing of an R package

Chris,

 you've not said what *you* would like the license for your software to do. You 
could release the software under a "public domain", "no rights reserved" style 
license, and then if people want to link it with proprietary materials then 
nothing can stop them. But it wouldn't stop people commercialising (what was) 
your code, modifying it, re-releasing it as binary and without source, and so 
on.

 Once you've decided which things you want to permit or restrict under your 
license then you can see if there's a pre-existing one that matches your 
requirements, or whether you have to write one yourself! Good luck with that 
option!

 https://opensource.org/license/MIT is one of the more permissive open source 
licenses - check the others on there for more info.

Barry



On Fri, Jan 19, 2018 at 8:31 AM, Chris Brien 
mailto:chris.br...@unisa.edu.au>> wrote:
Dear list members,

I have come to realize that my understanding of free software licensing was 
somewhat naïve. The problem is that I now find that, in spite of spending quite 
a bit of time reading about various licenses on the web, I have been unable to 
identify a suitable license for the situation that I have with one of my 
packages.

I am solely responsible for the development of my package, `foo' say. However, 
most functions in `foo' call functions from a proprietary package, `bar' say , 
the latter not being available from an online software repository and 
consisting of R functions that call routines in a library. That is, `foo' 
enhances `bar'.

I had thought that a GPL licence was appropriate because (1) `foo' is free 
software and (ii) I do not distribute `bar' with `foo'. That is, I am 
distributing only free software.  However, I have come to understand that this 
is not the case because a free software package linked with a proprietary 
package does not satisfy the requirements to be GPL.

I have found it difficult to work out a license that might cover my package 
because much of the discussion online covers cases that are the opposite of 
mine i.e. cases where `foo' is proprietary and `bar' is freeware. I can 
appreciate why this needs to be avoided.

I can also understand that a disadvantage of what I am doing is that it tends 
to entrench the use of such software. While I agree that it is desirable that 
`bar' be replaced with free software, unfortunately `bar' has functionality 
that is currently infeasible to replace with free software. At least I am not 
profiting from the enhancements that I have made.

I am hoping that someone more experienced in software development and licensing 
issues can suggest a license type that might be suitable for `foo' such that at 
least the enhancements that it incorporates remain `free'?

Cheers,

  Chris Brien

Adjunct Senior Lecturer in Statistics
-
Phenomics and Bioinformatics Research Centre
University of South Australia
GPO Box 2471
ADELAIDE  5001  South Australia
Phone:  +61 8 8302 5535   Fax:  +61 8 8302 
5785
Email:   chris.br...@unisa.edu.au
WEB page:  
CRICOS No 00121B

__
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Re: [R-pkg-devel] Licensing of an R package

[Chris Brien]

Hi Brian,

Fair point that even commercial packages have licenses.

In this case you can do neither of the things that you suggest might be 
possible. It is the reason that I have never contemplated distributing `bar' 
with `foo'.

Cheers,

  Chris

-Original Message-
From: R-package-devel [mailto:r-package-devel-boun...@r-project.org] On Behalf 
Of Brian G. Peterson
Sent: 19 January 2018 20:56
To: r-package-devel@r-project.org
Subject: Re: [R-pkg-devel] Licensing of an R package

Chris, on C) even commercial packages have licenses.  If the commercial package 
contains a linkable software library, that license is very important in this 
discussion, because it tells you (us) what you can do with that library.

It may say that you can distribute binary code you build with that library, or 
that you can link other proprietary software to it, or that you can do neither 
of those things.

So the exact license of 'bar' is important to this discussion as well.

There are a number of R packages on CRAN that link to commercial libraries or 
require a commercial library to be available (such as optimization routines), 
but the exact license of the commercial library needs to be known, and the 
desired behavior needs to be permitted.

Regards,

Brian

On 01/19/2018 04:19 AM, Chris Brien wrote:
> Hi Stefan,
> 
> Here are the answers:
> 
> A) No, I am simply calling routines.
> B) By proprietary I mean that it is a commercial package.
> C) No, it seemed better to use short, distinctive names for the two packages 
> and to focus on the essential issues, namely that `bar' is a commercial 
> package and that `foo' is not.
> 
> Thanks for your interest.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
>Chris
> 
> 
> From: stefan.mckinnon.edwa...@gmail.com 
> [mailto:stefan.mckinnon.edwa...@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Stefan 
> McKinnon Høj-Edwards
> Sent: Friday, 19 January 2018 7:58 PM
> To: Chris Brien
> Cc: r-package-devel@r-project.org
> Subject: Re: [R-pkg-devel] Licensing of an R package
> 
> Hi Chris,
> 
> Just for clarification, there are at least two aspects that affect how you 
> can license your package.
> 
> A) Do you distribute `bar` with your package, or are you simply calling 
> routines in `bar`?
> B) What is the exact license of `bar`?
> C) Is there a reason for this secrecy of `bar`? If we knew what it was, 
> somebody on this list might have experience with it or similar.
> 
> If `bar` is not freely available, it doesn't seem your package would be 
> accepted to CRAN (do correct me if I am wrong).
> 
> Kindly,
> Stefan McKinnon Hoj-Edwards
> 
> 
> Stefan McKinnon Høj-Edwards
> ph.d. Genetics
> +44 (0)776 231 2464
> +45 2888 6598
> Skype: stefan_edwards
> 
> 2018-01-19 8:31 GMT+00:00 Chris Brien :
> Dear list members,
> 
> I have come to realize that my understanding of free software licensing was 
> somewhat naïve. The problem is that I now find that, in spite of spending 
> quite a bit of time reading about various licenses on the web, I have been 
> unable to identify a suitable license for the situation that I have with one 
> of my packages.
> 
> I am solely responsible for the development of my package, `foo' say. 
> However, most functions in `foo' call functions from a proprietary package, 
> `bar' say , the latter not being available from an online software repository 
> and consisting of R functions that call routines in a library. That is, `foo' 
> enhances `bar'.
> 
> I had thought that a GPL licence was appropriate because (1) `foo' is free 
> software and (ii) I do not distribute `bar' with `foo'. That is, I am 
> distributing only free software.  However, I have come to understand that 
> this is not the case because a free software package linked with a 
> proprietary package does not satisfy the requirements to be GPL.
> 
> I have found it difficult to work out a license that might cover my package 
> because much of the discussion online covers cases that are the opposite of 
> mine i.e. cases where `foo' is proprietary and `bar' is freeware. I can 
> appreciate why this needs to be avoided.
> 
> I can also understand that a disadvantage of what I am doing is that it tends 
> to entrench the use of such software. While I agree that it is desirable that 
> `bar' be replaced with free software, unfortunately `bar' has functionality 
> that is currently infeasible to replace with free software. At least I am not 
> profiting from the enhancements that I have made.
> 
> I am hoping that someone more experienced in software development and 
> licensing issues can suggest a license type that might be suitable for `foo' 
> such that at least the enhancements that it incorporates remain `free'?
> 
> Cheers,
> 
>    Chris Brien
> 
> Adjunct Senior Lecturer in Statistics
> -
> Phenomics and Bioinformatics Research Centre University of South 
> Australia GPO Box 2471 ADELAIDE  5001  South Australia
> Phone:  +61 8 8302 5535   Fax:  +61 8 8302 5785
> Email:   chris.br...@unisa.edu.au
> WEB page:  

Re: [R-pkg-devel] Licensing of an R package

[Barry Rowlingson]

On Fri, Jan 19, 2018 at 10:28 AM, Chris Brien 
wrote:

> Hi Barry,
>
> Ideally, I would prefer that my package remain open source.
>
> However, I have considered MIT and the two BSD licenses and I understand
> that they are permissive. I have not ruled out using one of them.
>
> The thing about those licenses is that I have not been able to find
> anything on the web about linking a proprietary and free package under
> those licenses. The information is not nearly as comprehensive as it is for
> GPL licenses.
>
> You're not distributing the proprietary package, and the MIT license
doesn't restrict use in any way, including linking with proprietary
software. So you can MIT-license your code and it remains open source, can
link with EvilCorps `bar` package, and it guarantees your (c) notice and
the MIT license will be preserved on copies of your code (it can't be
re-licensed under a different license).


> The problem as I see it is that they are GPL compatible and so I do not
> understand how that can be the case and that you can apply the licence in
> my situation.
>
>
GPL-compatible means you can put MIT-license code together with GPL-license
code and distribute the combination *under the GPL license*. This doesn't
work the other way round - you can't bring GPL-licensed code into an
MIT-license codebase and distribute that under MIT-license!

Interestingly GNU doesn't seem to acknowledge the existence of a "MIT
License" although OSI does. To GNU, the "MIT LIcense" is a number of
possible licenses, and this might be why CRAN insist on inclusion of the
license file itself with anything branded "MIT License":

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html


Barry



> I agree that to write your own license is rather daunting. I would much
> prefer to use a pre-existing license.
>
> Thanks for your comments.
>
> Cheers,
>
>   Chris
>
>
>
> From: b.rowling...@gmail.com [mailto:b.rowling...@gmail.com] On Behalf Of
> Barry Rowlingson
> Sent: Friday, 19 January 2018 8:00 PM
> To: Chris Brien
> Cc: r-package-devel@r-project.org
> Subject: Re: [R-pkg-devel] Licensing of an R package
>
> Chris,
>
>  you've not said what *you* would like the license for your software to
> do. You could release the software under a "public domain", "no rights
> reserved" style license, and then if people want to link it with
> proprietary materials then nothing can stop them. But it wouldn't stop
> people commercialising (what was) your code, modifying it, re-releasing it
> as binary and without source, and so on.
>
>  Once you've decided which things you want to permit or restrict under
> your license then you can see if there's a pre-existing one that matches
> your requirements, or whether you have to write one yourself! Good luck
> with that option!
>
>  https://opensource.org/license/MIT is one of the more permissive open
> source licenses - check the others on there for more info.
>
> Barry
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 19, 2018 at 8:31 AM, Chris Brien  mailto:chris.br...@unisa.edu.au>> wrote:
> Dear list members,
>
> I have come to realize that my understanding of free software licensing
> was somewhat naïve. The problem is that I now find that, in spite of
> spending quite a bit of time reading about various licenses on the web, I
> have been unable to identify a suitable license for the situation that I
> have with one of my packages.
>
> I am solely responsible for the development of my package, `foo' say.
> However, most functions in `foo' call functions from a proprietary package,
> `bar' say , the latter not being available from an online software
> repository and consisting of R functions that call routines in a library.
> That is, `foo' enhances `bar'.
>
> I had thought that a GPL licence was appropriate because (1) `foo' is free
> software and (ii) I do not distribute `bar' with `foo'. That is, I am
> distributing only free software.  However, I have come to understand that
> this is not the case because a free software package linked with a
> proprietary package does not satisfy the requirements to be GPL.
>
> I have found it difficult to work out a license that might cover my
> package because much of the discussion online covers cases that are the
> opposite of mine i.e. cases where `foo' is proprietary and `bar' is
> freeware. I can appreciate why this needs to be avoided.
>
> I can also understand that a disadvantage of what I am doing is that it
> tends to entrench the use of such software. While I agree that it is
> desirable that `bar' be replaced with free software, unfortunately `bar'
> has functionality that is currently infeasible to replace with free
> software. At least I am not profiting from the enhancements that I have
> made.
>
> I am hoping that someone more experienced in software development and
> licensing issues can suggest a license type that might be suitable for
> `foo' such that at least the enhancements that it incorporates remain
> `free'?
>
> Cheers,
>
>   Chris Brien
>
> Adjunct Senior Lecture

Re: [R-pkg-devel] Licensing of an R package

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 19/01/2018 3:31 AM, Chris Brien wrote:

Dear list members,

I have come to realize that my understanding of free software licensing was 
somewhat naïve. The problem is that I now find that, in spite of spending quite 
a bit of time reading about various licenses on the web, I have been unable to 
identify a suitable license for the situation that I have with one of my 
packages.

I am solely responsible for the development of my package, `foo' say. However, 
most functions in `foo' call functions from a proprietary package, `bar' say , 
the latter not being available from an online software repository and 
consisting of R functions that call routines in a library. That is, `foo' 
enhances `bar'.

I had thought that a GPL licence was appropriate because (1) `foo' is free 
software and (ii) I do not distribute `bar' with `foo'. That is, I am 
distributing only free software.  However, I have come to understand that this 
is not the case because a free software package linked with a proprietary 
package does not satisfy the requirements to be GPL.


From your 2nd paragraph, you can license your package any way you like. 
 You own the copyright to all of it.


You can use GPL if you feel like it.  The license you choose doesn't 
limit anything *you* do, it grants rights to other people to do things 
with your code.  Without those rights, it would be a copyright violation 
for them to make copies of your package.  With them, they are allowed to 
make and distribute copies provided they follow the terms of the license.


If you choose GPL, then other people (like CRAN) can redistribute your 
package under the terms of the GPL.  That should be enough for CRAN, but 
they might not accept your package since they can't test it (unless they 
have the rights to use "bar").


Nobody (not even the company who owns the rights to "bar") can link your 
package to "bar" and redistribute the combination, because that would 
violate the GPL, and you never gave them the right to do that.  You 
can't do it unless that company gives you permission, and apparently 
they haven't.


Duncan Murdoch

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Re: [R-pkg-devel] Licensing of an R package

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

Chris,

I am with Duncan here.

You can license _your_ package any way you want and prefer. I like GPL.

You seem to imply that the GPL license prohibits linking against commercial
code.  If that were the case we'd never have R, Emacs, gcc/g++, ... on
Windows or macOS or any of the now-essentially-extinct commercial Unux
flavours.  We alway link against their system libraries too.

Also look eg at our Rblpapi package.  The Bloomberg API is not open source,
but they allow distribution of the (pre-built) library and headers.  Our
package, building on top, is GPL-2+. No issues.  (This example is extra fun
because CRAN can't distribute the API, but can use it for building our
package. Using the package requires having a commercial and expensive
Bloomberg terminal license and installation.)

Dirk

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Re: [R-pkg-devel] Licensing of an R package

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

On 19 January 2018 at 10:00, Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
| Also look eg at our Rblpapi package.  The Bloomberg API is not open source,
| but they allow distribution of the (pre-built) library and headers.  Our
| package, building on top, is GPL-2+. No issues.  (This example is extra fun

Correction. It's GPL-3.  And CRAN also makes us include a file LICENSE
stating all that is needed to know here w.r.t Bloomberg.

https://github.com/Rblp/Rblpapi/blob/master/LICENSE

Dirk

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Re: [R-pkg-devel] Licensing of an R package

[Chris Brien]

Hi Dirk & Duncan,

I too like GPL and I had thought that the situation was as Duncan outlines. 
Consequently, I had licensed `foo' as GPL >= 2.

However, because I have been unable to find a discussion of my case, in spite 
of the extensive material about GNU licensing on the web, I have had difficulty 
deciding whether or not I was mistaken in applying a GPL license. 

It does seem that the open source philosophy is that all software should be 
open source and GPL licensing is to promote this, which it does by restricting 
how you can apply GPL licensing. It would be consistent with this philosophy 
that GPL does not allow one to `link' with a commercial package. However, 
somewhat reluctantly it seems, an exception is made under GPL licensing  for 
linking to commercial `system libraries' because it is necessary to allow this 
for things like R etc. 

If Bloomberg API is a system library then it also qualifies as an exception. (I 
have seen the license file and note that you are able to distribute the API.)

In my case `bar' is asreml and I don't believe that it qualifies as a system 
library. However, I can use it to build my library (asremlPlus) and the 
maintainers and license owners know that I do this. As a result I am still 
unsure that GPL can be applied in my case.

Ugh! It is a minefield.

Thanks muchly for your input.

Cheers,

  Chris


-Original Message-
From: Dirk Eddelbuettel [mailto:dirk.eddelbuet...@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Dirk 
Eddelbuettel
Sent: Saturday, 20 January 2018 2:30 AM
To: Duncan Murdoch
Cc: Chris Brien; r-package-devel@r-project.org
Subject: Re: [R-pkg-devel] Licensing of an R package


Chris,

I am with Duncan here.

You can license _your_ package any way you want and prefer. I like GPL.

You seem to imply that the GPL license prohibits linking against commercial 
code.  If that were the case we'd never have R, Emacs, gcc/g++, ... on Windows 
or macOS or any of the now-essentially-extinct commercial Unux flavours.  We 
alway link against their system libraries too.

Also look eg at our Rblpapi package.  The Bloomberg API is not open source, but 
they allow distribution of the (pre-built) library and headers.  Our package, 
building on top, is GPL-2+. No issues.  (This example is extra fun because CRAN 
can't distribute the API, but can use it for building our package. Using the 
package requires having a commercial and expensive Bloomberg terminal license 
and installation.)

Dirk

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