[R-pkg-devel] GPL + other licence

[Martyn Plummer]

I agree with Brian. This type of license is classified by the Free
Software Foundation as "lax" or "permissive" because it does not
prevent incorporation of the code into proprietary software.

Here is what Richard Stallman has to say: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/
license-compatibility.en.html

"[L]ax licenses are usually compatible with any copyleft license. In
the combined program, the parts that came in under lax licenses still
carry them, and the combined program as a whole carries the copyleft
license." 

Hence you can license your package under the GPL.

Martyn

On Tue, 2018-04-10 at 08:14 -0500, Brian G. Peterson wrote:
> I'm not a lawyer, but I don't see why the entire package can't be
> released under GPL, while also respecting the QHull license for the
> QHull code and the derived QHull portions.
> 
> Many existing R packages released under GPL, and R itself, include BSD
> and MIT licensed code.
> 
> The QHull license is a very permissive license, basically BSD or MIT-
> like in its permissions.
> 
> BSD and MIT code may be included in GPL'd code, as long as its license
> (inclusion of the copyright notice, etc.) is also included where
> required.
> 
> GPL applies to the entire work, in this case the R package.  I think
> you should discuss this with the CRAN maintainers and release the
> package under GPL.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Brian
>