[R] declaring GPL license

Berwin A Turlach berwin at maths.uwa.edu.au
Thu Oct 14 18:49:37 CEST 2010


G'day Stacey,

On Thu, 14 Oct 2010 12:36:20 -0400
Stacey Wood <sjwood at ncsu.edu> wrote:

> Thanks everyone.  Now I know that I should not include another copy
> of the license, but where should I refer to the copies on
> http://www.r-project.org/Licenses/? In the DESCRIPTION file?

I used to mention that location in the License: line of the DESCRIPTION
file, after GPL (>=2).  But some versions ago, that line got
standardised and now it is no longer possible to put additional text
onto that line. 

I guess you could just add a line LicenceLocation:  As far as I
understand the documentation, you are free to add additional lines
beyond those described in "Writing R Extensions" to the DESCRIPTION
file.  Some entries described in the manual are optional and for those
that are not some restrictions may apply that have to be followed.

Personally, I decided not to put any such reference into the
DESCRIPTION file of my packages as I guess that people who worry about
the lisence will either look into the source package (where I have a
copy) or know how to find one. :)

HTH.

Cheers,

	Berwin



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