[R-pkg-devel] best practices for handling a mixed-licensed package

[Hadley Wickham]

On Fri, Oct 2, 2020 at 5:26 PM Dirk Eddelbuettel <edd using debian.org> wrote:

>
> On 2 October 2020 at 14:44, Jeff Newmiller wrote:
> | if you want clarity in the minds of _users_ I would beg you to split the
> code into two packages. People will likely either be afraid of the GPL
> bogey man and refrain from utilizing your MIT code as permitted or fail to
> honor the GPL terms correctly if both are in the same package.
>
> Have you read R's own doc/COPYRIGHTS ?
>
>    https://github.com/wch/r-source/blob/trunk/doc/COPYRIGHTS
>
> In short the opposite of what you just suggest.
>
> Also, labels such as "more liberal" or "permissive" or "bogey man" are not
> exactly unambiguous.  Different people can and do have different views
> here.
> I would suggest using simpler terms such as "different". What matters is
> that
> the licenses permit open source use while ensuring they are compatible
> which
> is generally the case these days.
>

I think this is a bit of an oversimplification, especially given that
"compatibility" is not symmetric. For example, you can include MIT license
code in a GPL licensed package; you can not include GPL licensed code
inside an MIT licensed package. There are some rough guidelines at
https://r-pkgs.org/license.html#license-compatibility.

Hadley

-- 
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