Roger,

I don't understand; since akima is freely available for download (and other
packages use akima) from CRAN, how does this licensing work? Are the
developers using akima in their packages paying a fee to the akima
developer? Just curious...

Thank you,
Tom


On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 4:10 PM, Roger Bivand <Roger.Bivand@nhh.no> wrote:

> On Fri, 29 Mar 2013, Andreas Forų Tollefsen wrote:
>
>  Dear r-sig-geo people,
>>
>> I have previously used the McSpatial package. However, according to it's
>> website it is removed from the CRAN library. Hence, it is not available for
>> R 2.15.3.
>>
>> Does anyone know if the project is closed down?
>>
>
> I do not know specifically, but CRAN policies with regard to dependency on
> non-free software (McSpatial depends on akima, which has a non-free
> license) have been been made clearer. Packages depending on akima and
> others with similar status must modify their own licenses, or split out the
> functions involved, obliging the user to opt into the non-free license of
> the upstream dependency.
>
> You may download the source package from the CRAN package archives:
>
> http://cran.r-project.org/src/**contrib/Archive/McSpatial/<http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/Archive/McSpatial/>
>
> and install it from source yourself.
>
> In this case, its author, Daniel McMillen and I are hoping that a
> replacement for akima will be an adopted Google Summer of Coding project if
> R gets enough project slots - see:
>
> https://groups.google.com/**forum/?fromgroups#!topic/gsoc-**r/8ZUQCVlyodk<https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/gsoc-r/8ZUQCVlyodk>
>
> If/when that happens, we will have a viable alternative under a free
> license.
>
> CRAN has to be concerned about license management, because (if one was a
> lawyer, I am not!) funded research might be seen as a commercial activity,
> as might courses for which participants pay. So many universities and
> research labs are asking for better control of the licenses of R
> contributed packages, and CRAN is trying to help to sort things out.
>
> Hope this clarifies,
>
> Roger
>
>
>
>> Andreas
>>
>>         [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>
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>>
>>
> --
> Roger Bivand
> Department of Economics, NHH Norwegian School of Economics,
> Helleveien 30, N-5045 Bergen, Norway.
> voice: +47 55 95 93 55; fax +47 55 95 95 43
> e-mail: Roger.Bivand@nhh.no
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>


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Thomas E Adams, III
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