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

[Giannis Mamalikidis]

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'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.

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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
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-----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