[R-gui] RE: [R] The hidden costs of GPL software?

[David Lennartsson]

Philippe Grosjean wrote:

>John W. Eaton wrote:
>  
>
>>On 17-Nov-2004, Philippe Grosjean <phgrosjean at sciviews.org> wrote:
>>
>>| - There is no possibility to make a commercial GUI for R (thanks to 
>>| the GPL),
>>
>>This is false.  Please don't confuse "commercial" (Red Hat 
>>and SuSE GNU/Linux distributions are commercial software) 
>>with "proprietary".
>>
>>jwe
>>    
>>
>
>Ooops! Sorry, and thank you for correcting me. I mean "proprietary", of
>course.
>Best,
>
>Philippe Grosjean
>  
>
This thread has gone to be centered around the GUI of R and what it is 
good and bad.

However, is the above statement correct? To me it seems like there is a 
fully working R-proxy dll for windows and other ways to interface 
against R that only binds to LGPL components. You can build completely 
proprietary packages and front-ends to R without having to make sources 
available, as long as you distribute changes to R itself as source.

In my opinion anyone can be to R what S+ is to S. Can any developer 
comment on this?

    Best regards,

    David