[Rd] R on the Cydia Store

[Brian G. Peterson]

In the event that a lawyer is consulted, I would suggest finding one 
with real experience in open source law.  In my experience, even most 
intellectual property or software attorneys have little to no experience 
with open source law, and I've heard the most dreadful and incorrect 
utterances from them on the topic of open source licenses.

Duncan is correct that parts of R may be incompatible with GPL-3, and 
that is a matter for an attorney.

I installed the premium version of the Android application this morning.

It appears to contain the required license statement (though whether 
that license is valid I cannot say, as discussed in this thread).  It 
also contains a link to:

https://code.google.com/p/rconsoleapp/

The development team is not listed here either, just 'Apps Embedded' and 
more similar redirection.  If these are legal entities, and proper 
copyright assignments have been done for the 'app collection', this may 
be fine, but it is rather outside the spirit of most open source projects.

The code is also not actually available at the link above.  What is 
available is an external link to Google Drive, where a 34 MB tarball of 
different tarballs exists, in a single archive.  Again, consistent with 
most open source projects, perhaps one of the several source code 
management tools provided by code.google.com could be used to create a 
source code repository which could be accessed by other open source 
developers, and examined more easily than the tarball.

It's not clear that anything obvious has been done outside the letter of 
the GPL.  It is also not clear than any improper use has been made of R 
Foundation trademarks (such as the R logo).

If a lawyer is consulted, one way to find  such a lawyer would be to 
start with someone at the Software Freedom Conservancy:

https://sfconservancy.org/

They have contacts with attorneys with experience in GPL licensing and 
commercialization, in multiple countries.

Regards,

Brian

On 12/09/2014 06:31 PM, Marc Schwartz wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I would send an introductory e-mail to:
>
>    R-foundation at R-project.org <mailto:R-foundation at R-project.org>
>
> That will facilitate further discussion on the matter and additional details can be requested offline as may be needed.
>
> Be aware that none of the R Foundation members are lawyers. So while we can perhaps offer informal and non-binding opinions, you should seek formal legal guidance from counsel specifically familiar with open source licensing regarding your obligations in that domain.
>
> Finally, it would be helpful and courteous to know at least a primary contact full name for your group, as opposed to the Team moniker.
>
> Regards,
>
> Marc
>
>
>> On Dec 9, 2014, at 5:39 PM, Apps Embedded <apps.embedded at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Thanks for your first answers.
>>
>> So, should we contact the R foundation team members to inform them of our project on the Android platform and on the Cydia Store ?
>> If yes, could you give us their email please ? Or should we write to the president of the R foundation for instance ?
>>
>> Best regards.
>>
>> Apps Embedded Team.
>>
>>
>> 2014-12-09 23:49 GMT+01:00 Marc Schwartz <marc_schwartz at me.com <mailto:marc_schwartz at me.com>>:
>>
>>> On Dec 9, 2014, at 3:34 PM, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan at gmail.com <mailto:murdoch.duncan at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 09/12/2014, 4:26 PM, Marc Schwartz wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Dec 9, 2014, at 10:44 AM, Henrik Bengtsson <hb at biostat.ucsf.edu <mailto:hb at biostat.ucsf.edu>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> On Dec 9, 2014 6:38 AM, "Apps Embedded" <apps.embedded at gmail.com <mailto:apps.embedded at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> We have published an Android app called R Console on the Play Store since
>>>>>> Décember 2013.
>>>>>> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.appsopensource.R <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.appsopensource.R>
>>>>>> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.appsopensource.Rpremium <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.appsopensource.Rpremium>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In the mean time, we have developped its equivalent app for the App Store.
>>>>>> We released it on march 2014. We have been approved from this date by Apple
>>>>>> to publish it world wide.
>>>>>> Recently, we learnt that GPL app are not compatible with the App Store
>>>>>> distribution licence.
>>>>>
>>>>> What I would like to write here, would fall under "this is certainly
>>>>> not a topic for R devel", so I refrain.
>>>>>
>>>>> However, I can say that it's likely your problems wouldn't have stopped there;
>>>>>
>>>>> [R] R on the iPhone/iPad? Not so much....a GPL violation
>>>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2010-June/240901.html <https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2010-June/240901.html>
>>>>>
>>>>> /Henrik
>>>>
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> I might add that, given the intentions expressed below, in terms of doing this on a jailbroken iOS device via Cydia, the concerns raised in the Apple iOS SDK, that I referenced in the above linked post from 2010, essentially go away.
>>>>
>>>> They would still be germane, as may now be expressed in the current SDK, including the use of the new Swift language, if the OP's intent was to pursue this via official AppStore channels and am surprised that it was approved by Apple previously given the indicated content and functionality of the app.
>>>>
>>>> The primary intention of jailbreaking an iOS device is, of course, to circumvent Apple's restrictions on the software that can be installed by using third party distribution channels and in the tools that can be used to develop apps.
>>>>
>>>> That being said, the licensing issues, as Duncan raised in his reply, are still germane and permission from the R Foundation should be sought for any uses involving R Foundation copyrighted content. That would be relevant for both the iOS implementation and the Android implementation.
>>>
>>> Just to be clear:  everybody already has permission from the R copyright
>>> holders to use R within the existing licenses.  There's no need to seek
>>> extra permission for that.
>>>
>>> Trademarks are different...
>>>
>>> Duncan Murdoch
>>
>>
>> Thanks for the clarification Duncan, I was imprecise in my language.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Marc
>>
>>
>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>>
>>>> Marc Schwartz
>>>>
>>>> P.S. I echo's Duncan's comment, in that I am also a member of the R Foundation, but am not speaking here on it's behalf.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thus we decided to remove the iOS app from the App Store several days ago.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> We are thinking of publishing the same app published under Cydia with a
>>>>>> freemium model.
>>>>>> Its licence would be GPL v3.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What we would like to do under Cydia with R Console is to have the
>>>>>> following behavior :
>>>>>> - free version will be able to run recommended packages and graphics are
>>>>>> not enabled. A small ad banner is present on top of the app.
>>>>>> - premium version will be the same as the free version except the ad banner
>>>>>> will not be present anymore and 3 compilers will be integrated into the app
>>>>>> in order to be able to compile and run most of the Cran packages from
>>>>>> source.
>>>>>> - graphics may be added in a second step.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The app will be considered as a bundle of open-source tools. This bundle
>>>>>> will be under the Gnu General Public Licence version 3. Each open-source
>>>>>> tool which contributes to the overall bundle will stay in its original
>>>>>> licence (R is GPL v2 for instance) but the bundle will be GPL v3.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>  From your point of view, do you see any legal issue with this project under
>>>>>> Cydia for jailbroken iOS devices?
>>>>>>>  From a trademark point of view, is the name of the apps "R Console Free"
>>>>>> and "R Console Premium" ok ?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks for your help.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Apps Embedded Team.
>>>>