[R] licensing of R packages

[Berwin A Turlach]

G'day Brian,

On Fri, 14 Nov 2008 11:47:46 +0000 (GMT)
Prof Brian Ripley <ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk> wrote:

> On Fri, 14 Nov 2008, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
>
> > I think they are talking about cases where the GPL libraries are
> > compiled into the new product.  Packages generally don't include
> > copies of anything from R, so our GPL doesn't apply to them.
> > (Writers may have chosen to copy and modify base functions; if so,
> > they are copying our code, and the GPL would apply.)
> 
> That _has_ happened several times (usually without any credit and
> removing the copyright header from the R version), so package writers
> do need to be aware that base functions are not fair game.  Often it
> comes to light when the forked version fails when e.g. .Internal
> calls are changed.

Removing credits is definitely poor form but nothing that the GPL
stops, IIRC.  If you want credits to be carried on, you would need to
use a license such as the original BSD license.  IIRC, it was exactly
this clause, that credits have to be kept, that made the original BSD
license a "GPL-incompatible Free Software License".

As far as I understand, removing a copyright header is indeed a pretty
big no-no.  And copyright law seems to be a funny thing.  Recently I was
asked by the maintainers of AucTeX whether I was willing to sign over
the copyright of contributions I once had provided.  When I looked at
one of the files for which they wanted the copyright signed over, not a
single line looked familiar to me (I cannot write elisp code at the
level that the code was at).  The file attributed copyright to me and I
vaguely remember that I once contributed it so that AucTeX would have
support for some .sty file. But over time, presumably also to keep up
with changes in AucTeX, the file was completely re-written by others;
with none of the original code remaining (as far as I can tell). Still,
it was suggested to me that I am the copyright holder just because I
contributed the original file, even though by now not a single line of
the code originated from me.

Cheers,

	Berwin