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

[Ben Bolker]

   AGPL was chosen by my colleagues.  I'll pass on the information.

On 7/13/21 6:40 PM, Steven Scott wrote:
> 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 
> <mailto: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
>     <mailto: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
>     <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
>     <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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> 

-- 
Dr. Benjamin Bolker
Professor, Mathematics & Statistics and Biology, McMaster University
Director, School of Computational Science and Engineering
Graduate chair, Mathematics & Statistics