[R-pkg-devel] Please ensure that the license you choose also covers any dependencies (including system dependencies) of your package

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

On 1 September 2017 at 12:23, Joe Thorley wrote:
| Writing R extensions <https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/R-exts.html#Licensing> states that
| 
| > Please ensure that the license you choose also covers any dependencies (including system dependencies) of your package
| 
| Is this considered to apply to R packages in Imports, Depends or Suggests?

No, AFAIK it pertains to code you include in _your_ package or any external
resources which your package directory depends upon (via SystemRequirements).

Example 1: You write a package as (free, open source) wrapper around another
library, say in C or Fortran.  This paragraph wants to make sure that you do
not attempt hide any possible "less-free" licenses of the included code, or
the required code.

The remainder of the paragraph which you omitted in your mail is instructive

   it is particularly important that any restrictions on the use of such
   dependencies are evident to people reading your DESCRIPTION file.

as the rest of that Section 1.1.2 really talks about the requirement for
'free or open source software'.  And the line quote talks about possible
restrictions -- please make any such restrictions as clear as possible.

Hth,  Dirk

-- 
http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com | @eddelbuettel | edd at debian.org