[R-pkg-devel] Possible open-source license incompatibilities within R packages

[Charles Plessy]

Le Fri, Sep 12, 2025 at 10:42:56AM +0300, Ilmari Tamminen a écrit :
>
>I am very likely to ask about the topic from a software lawyer for my
>particular case. But to form educated questions, I first need to get
>some basic understanding, and also hear how the community thinks about
>these issues.

Hi Ilmari,

there is an important point to consider in order to have the big picture
before asking for legal advice: on whom is the burden of license
compatibility.

I first wrote a long example, but here is a LLM summary that I am
very satisfied of:

GPL‑2‑only and GPL‑3 are not license‑compatible when combined into a
single derivative work, but this is rarely an issue for developers who
only distribute source code — private use is unrestricted, and separate
works can be redistributed side‑by‑side.

The problem arises when redistributing binaries or other combined
artefacts: if any binary contains code from both, it cannot be legally
redistributed.

This risk extends to container images: while a generic image bundling
many unrelated packages is usually fine, an image built to run two
incompatible‑licensed components together could be considered a single
work, triggering the same restrictions.

So I think that the big question is not only on how you comply to
license terms, some of which you can chose as you are the copyright
holder, but also how your choices empower the downstream community to
comply.

Best,

Charles

-- 
Charles Plessy                         Nagahama, Yomitan, Okinawa, Japan
Debian Med packaging team         http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-med
Tooting from work,               https://fediscience.org/@charles_plessy
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