[R-pkg-devel] Licenses

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 22/10/2020 11:55 a.m., Marc Schwartz wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Oct 22, 2020, at 11:19 AM, Marc Schwartz <marc_schwartz using me.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Oct 22, 2020, at 10:21 AM, Kevin R. Coombes <kevin.r.coombes using gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I am developing a package and getting a NOTE from R CMD check about licenses and ultimate dependencies on a restrictive license, which I can't figure out how to fix.
>>>
>>> My package imports flowCore, which has an Artistic-2.0 license.
>>> But flowCore imports cytolib, which has a license from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center that prohibits commercial use.
>>>
>>> I tried using the same license as flowCore, but still get the NOTE. Does anyone know which licenses can be used to be compatible with the Fred Hutch license? Or can I just do what flowCore apparently does and ignore the NOTE?
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>   Kevin
>>
>>
>> Hi Kevin,
>>
>> I have not looked at BioC's licensing requirements, but presumably, they are ok with the non-commercial use restrictions placed on users of cytolib, thus also on flowCore.
>>
>> If you want your package to be on CRAN, those restrictions on users are not allowed by CRAN's policy:
>>
>> https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/policies.html
>>
>> "Such packages are not permitted to require (e.g., by specifying in ‘Depends’, ‘Imports’ or ‘LinkingTo’ fields) directly or indirectly a package or external software which restricts users or usage."
>>
>>
>> Thus, you would seem to need to make a decision on hosting your package on CRAN, but without the need to import from flowCore/cytolib, or consider hosting your package on BioC, with the attendant restrictions on commercial use.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Marc Schwartz
> 
> 
> Well....
> 
> Now that I look at:
> 
>    https://svn.r-project.org/R/trunk/share/licenses/license.db
> 
> there are a few licenses listed there that do place restrictions on commercial use.
> 
> These include some Creative Commons Non-Commercial use variants and the ACM license.
> 
> Is the license DB file out of date, or is there an apparent conflict with the CRAN policy that I quoted above?
> 
> Anyone with an ability to comment?

Presumably CRAN would not accept the non-FOSS licenses that are listed 
in license.db, but R could still do computations on them, as described 
in ?library in the "Licenses" section.

Duncan Murdoch