[R] What is the Datasets License?

[Skipper Seabold]

On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 6:28 PM, Duncan Murdoch<murdoch at stats.uwo.ca> wrote:
> On 18/07/2009 6:06 PM, Skipper Seabold wrote:
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I saw that this question has been asked here before but couldn't find
>> an answer.  Are the raw datasets in R in the public domain?  Most are
>> based on quite old "classic" published results, so I would then assume
>> that the raw data is public domain rather than GPL.  Can anyone answer
>> this definitively, or is this maybe a question for R-devel?
>
> The datasets package is part of R, so it is licensed under the GPL. Some
> parts of it may come from sources with more permissive licenses. In Canada,
> I believe the data itself (as opposed to the expression of it in the
> datasets package or in the original sources) is generally not copyrightable,
> but rules may differ where you live.
>

Ok, this is what I suspected.  I don't mean the datasets package, but
rather the columns of data used in the datasets package that have been
taken from published papers.  The Canadian position seems to make
sense to me, and I will have a closer look at the law here.

> The file docs/COPYRIGHTS lists a number of details of who owns copyright on
> various bits and pieces, but I don't see anything about the datasets package
> mentioned there.
>
> I think very little of R is in the public domain, but parts are likely based
> on public domain materials.
>
> Duncan Murdoch
>

Thanks,

Skipper