[Rd] library() asks user to accept license of some built-in packages

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On 27/09/2016 10:49, Mikko Korpela wrote:
> When 'getOption("checkPackageLicense")' is 'TRUE' and the user calls
> 'library(grid)' for the first time, R asks the user to either accept or
> decline the package license. This should not be necessary as the package
> license is "Part of R ..." with "..." denoting the R version number, and
> R is free and open source.
>
> The unnecessary license question is asked for the built-in packages
> "compiler", "grid" and "parallel".
>
> The source file where the checks happen is
> "src/library/base/R/library.R". I think one solution could be to add
> something like
>
> if(identical(pkgInfo$DESCRIPTION[["Priority"]], "base")) return()
>
> to the beginning of checkLicense(), or add more packages to the
> hard-coded exemption list checked before calling checkLicense().

Rather, the analysis code has been told about the current licence for 
standard packages.

> Also, in find.package(), the shortcut list of standard packages is
> missing "compiler".

Which was intentional when the code was written (it is just a shortcut) 
but as 'compiler' is getting used more, it has been added.


-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Emeritus Professor of Applied Statistics, University of Oxford