[R] Question on if i am allowed to do something

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 12-05-24 8:23 AM, Giannis Mamalikidis wrote:
> Your answers were very helpful, thanks :)
>
> But, you see, the program I'm writing will be a team effort - and while I
> have not problem on making this program an open source - we don't really see
> eye to eye with the team on this.
> So no source code will be available - just freeware.
>
> R will not be at all altered! the only thing that R will do is be used to
> show a couple of plots, and make some t.test and ks.test.
>
> Does that qualify as a derivative work of R? Or would derivative work be if
> I altered R's Source code?

I would say that makes your program a derivative work, so you should not 
distribute R as part of it.

But I am not a lawyer; in fact, I'm an interested party:  a copyright 
holder on parts of R.  So I don't know if the law is on my side, but you 
can be assured that you are violating the wishes of at least one R 
copyright holder if you do distribute it in a closed source package.

Duncan Murdoch


> I've read the license but English is not my Native language, hence some
> terminology is unclear to me.
>
> And I'm just an undergraduate with no income in the middle of an economy
> crisis. I don't really see me paying a lawyer to ask the question.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Giannis Mamalikidis
> e-mail: Giannis_Mamalikidis at msn.com
> Member of the STAINS Research Group
> (STAtistics&  INformation Systems Group) of the
> Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
> Site: http://stains.csd.auth.gr
> B.Sc Student in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Marc Schwartz
> Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2012 3:58 AM
> To: Duncan Murdoch
> Cc: Giannis Mamalikidis ; r-help at r-project.org
> Subject: Re: [R] Question on if i am allowed to do something
>
>
> On May 23, 2012, at 6:51 PM, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
>
>> On 12-05-23 1:31 PM, Giannis Mamalikidis wrote:
>>> Hello all.
>>>
>>> I would like to know: provided that I absolutely state that R is not mine
>>> and I also include the R’s License which will be shown so people know R
>>> and
>>> R’s license,
>>> (provided the above) am I allowed to include R’s folder (the folder that
>>> has
>>> its binaries) on my freeware program or not?
>>
>> R is licensed under the GPL v 2 or 3.  The recommended packages that come
>> with it are separately licensed, but are also (mainly) GPL.  So just
>> follow the terms of that license, which is included with R.
>>
>> Duncan Murdoch
>
>
> Just to add on to Duncan's reply, you might want to review the GPL FAQ (and
> possibly consult a lawyer):
>
>    http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html
>
> The use and distribution of R within your 'freeware' can place certain
> obligations on you, including possibly requiring that you license your
> application with a GPL compatible license and make the source code of your
> application available in situations where your application is 'linked' to R.
> If you do not intend to make your own source code available, you should be
> very clear on what the GPL requires of you before proceeding.
>
> Regards,
>
> Marc Schwartz
>