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

[Hadley Wickham]

This is why I recommend that if you copy an entire directory of code you
include the LICENSE file for that directory; if you copy a single file,
make the license clear at the comment in a top of the file. This is
standard practice in most open source communities.

If you’re writing open source code, I don’t think it’s necessary to retain
a lawyer in order to handle these commonplace issues. (OTOH if you’re
building a business on top of open source code, hiring a lawyer is
absolutely essential).

Hadley

On Saturday, October 3, 2020, Jeff Newmiller <jdnewmil using dcn.davis.ca.us>
wrote:

> You are addressing interpretation of "a license", while my concern is not
> with the licenses themselves but with the identification of which code goes
> with which license. Assuming that you will need to retain lawyers to decide
> how to handle a license in a particular use case may be reasonable, but
> assuming you will also use them to parse the files in the package  seems
> rather less reasonable IMO when you have such a clear alternative
> (packaging).
>
> On October 3, 2020 9:02:02 AM PDT, Dirk Eddelbuettel <edd using debian.org>
> wrote:
> >
> >On 3 October 2020 at 09:54, Hadley Wickham wrote:
> >| 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.
> >
> >One approach for issues such as legal matters is to consult
> >subject-matter
> >experts which is why I pointed (in a prior private message spawned by
> >this
> >same thread) to sites such as
> >
> >  https://tldrlegal.com/
> >  https://choosealicense.com/
> >
> >Dirk
>
> --
> Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.
>


-- 
http://hadley.nz

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