[R-pkg-devel] best LICENSE practices: AGPL-3 + LaTeX Project Public License

[Steven Scott]

I'll let others discuss the technical details of how to set up the licence
files.  I want to make sure you know that using AGPL is a good way to
ensure that nobody in tech uses your package.  Maybe that's intended, but
when I was at Google the ONLY software we were specifically prohibited from
using was code released under AGPL. I won't try to convince you of that
being a good or bad thing, but wanted to make sure you were aware of it.

On Tue, Jul 13, 2021 at 2:11 PM Ben Bolker <bbolker using gmail.com> wrote:

>
>    In the process of trying to get a package to build successfully on
> r-hub's Fedora platform, I had to add a whole bunch of LaTeX .sty files
> to the vignette directory.  One of these was collectbox.sty, which
> triggers the NOTE
>
> ---
> NOTE
> The following files contain a license that requires
> distribution of original sources:
>    ‘collectbox.sty’
> ---
>
>    The licensing/copyright information in collectbox.sty is as follows:
>
>
> %% The original source files were:
> %%
> %% collectbox.dtx  (with options: `collectbox.sty')
> %%
> %% IMPORTANT NOTICE:
> %%
> %% For the copyright see the source file.
> %%
> %% Any modified versions of this file must be renamed
> %% with new filenames distinct from collectbox.sty.
> %%
> %% For distribution of the original source see the terms
> %% for copying and modification in the file collectbox.dtx.
> %%
> %% This generated file may be distributed as long as the
> %% original source files, as listed above, are part of the
> %% same distribution. (The sources need not necessarily be
> %% in the same archive or directory.)
> %% Copyright (C) 2012 by Martin Scharrer <martin using scharrer-online.de>
> %% --------------------------------------------------------------------
> %% This work may be distributed and/or modified under the
> %% conditions of the LaTeX Project Public License, either version 1.3
> %% of this license or (at your option) any later version.
> %% The latest version of this license is in
> %%   http://www.latex-project.org/lppl.txt
> %% and version 1.3 or later is part of all distributions of LaTeX
> %% version 2005/12/01 or later.
>
>     So I put collectbox.dtx into the inst/misc directory in the package.
> Fine.
>
>   Now, what do I need to do to (1) make sure that my DESCRIPTION file is
> correct and (2) hopefully, suppress the NOTE so I don't have to explain
> it to the CRAN maintainers every time?
>
> * Do I change the LICENCE line (which is currently AGPL-3)? According to
> https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/R-exts.html#Licensing it would
> seem I would have to switch to "file LICENCE" (adding a
> "Licence_is_FOSS: yes"), where "LICENCE" contains something like
>
> package code licensed under AGPL-3; file vignettes/collectbox.sty is
> under the LaTeX Project Public License (source provided in
> misc/collectbox.dtx)
>
> ? Should it say "file LICENCE" or "AGPL-3 + file LICENCE" ?
>
> * Do I just include the files without comment, since I have complied (as
> far as I can tell) with the terms of the LPPL?
>
> * Is there a way to signal to R CMD check that I *have* complied with
> the terms?
>
>    cheers
>     Ben Bolker
>
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