[Rd] Non-GPL packages for R

[Peter Dalgaard]

Prof. John C Nash wrote:
> The responses to my posting yesterday seem to indicate more consensus
> than I expected:
> 1) CRAN should be restricted to GPL-equivalent licensed packages

GPL-_compatible_ would be the word. However, this is not what has been
done in the past. There are packages with "non-commercial use" licences,
and the survival package was among them for quite a while. As far as I
know, the CRAN policy has been to ensure only that redistribution is
legal and that whatever license is used is visible to the user. People
who have responded on the list do not necessarily speak for CRAN. In the
final analysis, the maintainers must decide what is maintainable.

The problem with Rdonlp2 seems to have been that the interface packages
claimed to be LGPL2 without the main copyright holder's consent (and it
seems that he cannot grant consent for reasons of TU-Darmstadt
policies). It is hard to safeguard agaist that sort of thing. CRAN
maintainers must assume that legalities have been cleared and accept the
license in good faith.

(Even within the Free Software world there are current issues with,
e.g., incompatibilities between GPL v.2 and v.3, and also with the
Eclipse license. Don't get me started...)

> 2) r-forge could be left "buyer beware" using DESCRIPTION information
> 3) We may want a specific repository for restricted packages (RANC?)
> 
> How to proceed? A short search on Rseek did not turn up a chain of
> command for CRAN.
> 
> I'm prepared to help out with documentation etc. to move changes
> forward. They are not, in my opinion, likely to cause a lot of trouble
> for most users, and should simplify things over time.
> 
> JN
> 
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> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel


-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Øster Farimagsgade 5, Entr.B
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     PO Box 2099, 1014 Cph. K
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