[R-pkg-devel] LICENSE file in an R package for CRAN submission

[Ben Bolker]

    You have two choices:

* put LICENSE in your .Rbuildignore file so that it shows up on Github 
but is excluded from the package

* follow the instructions in 
https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/R-exts.html#Licensing to refer to 
LICENSE in your DESCRIPTION file. However, CRAN generally prefers that 
you use a standard license ("GPL-2", "GPL-3"), to make it easier for 
them to know that you've really complied with their openness 
requirements, and that you *not* include a license file that is 
redundant with that spec:

 > Whereas you should feel free to include a license file in your source 
distribution, please do not arrange to install yet another copy of the 
GNU COPYING or COPYING.LIB files but refer to the copies on 
https://www.R-project.org/Licenses/ and included in the R distribution 
(in directory share/licenses). Since files named LICENSE or LICENCE will 
be installed, do not use these names for standard license files. To 
include comments about the licensing rather than the body of a license, 
use a file named something like LICENSE.note.

On 2023-08-09 11:06 a.m., Emanuele Cordano wrote:
> Dear list,
> 
> is there a way to put the LICENSE file within an R package like in Github,
> I have an R package on Github with a a LICENSE file compliant to Github and
> containing the text of the licence citing in the DESCRIPION file. But when
> I check the package , I obatained the following output:
> 
> * checking top-level files ... NOTE
> File
>    LICENSE
> 
> is not mentioned in the DESCRIPTION file.
> 
> How can I solve this?
> Thank you
> best
> Emanuele Cordano

-- 
Dr. Benjamin Bolker
Professor, Mathematics & Statistics and Biology, McMaster University
Director, School of Computational Science and Engineering
(Acting) Graduate chair, Mathematics & Statistics
 > E-mail is sent at my convenience; I don't expect replies outside of 
working hours.