[R-gui] GPL licensing issues with a commercial R GUI

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 5/13/2008 7:46 AM, Serge Merzliakov wrote:
> This is exactly what I would like to do. There would be some text editor 
> type functionality which would then be run through R and the outpur 
> displayed.

In your original post, you asked for feedback from the core development 
team.  But what you really need is feedback from a lawyer who 
understands copyright and the GPL.

I would assume that some copyright holder will aggressively enforce the 
GPL.  It is not enough for one or two copyright holders to tell you to 
go ahead, you have to have agreement from all of them if you are 
violating the GPL.  The copyright in R is held quite widely, so I would 
guess it is not practical to get that sort of permission.  Similarly, I 
don't think it would be practical to get permission from a subset of the 
copyright holders and rewrite the parts you don't have permission to use.

On the other hand, if what you are doing falls within the GPL, then you 
already have permission to do it.

The core development team does not know about subtleties of copyright 
law so it is not in a position to tell you whether what you want to do 
is GPL compatible or not.  If you're not sure that what you are doing is 
legal, ask a lawyer, don't ask us.

Duncan Murdoch


> 
> Gavin Simpson wrote:
>> I am not a lawyer, but at important distinction here is what one means
>> by "linked". You're not linking against R if you just run some R code
>> through it and capture the output for example. This is how Brodgar, for
>> example, does what Serge wants to achieve --- see their statement on R,
>> Brodgar and the GPL:
>>
>> www.brodgar.com
>>
>> http://www.brodgar.com/brodgar.htm#2.%20Brodgar%20and%20R
>>
>> Whilst, from a personal point of view agree with Michael's statement
>> about producing an open source app and then sell support, we all don;t
>> have to follow that moral.
>>
>> G
>>
>> On Tue, 2008-05-13 at 02:05 -0700, Michael Lawrence wrote:
>>   
>>> Well, there's a big question as to whether non-GPL can link to GPL code.
>>> It's never been really tested in court. If I were you, I'd just make it
>>> open-source and sell your support for it.
>>>
>>> On Sun, May 11, 2008 at 5:19 AM, Serge Merzliakov <smerzlia at optusnet.com.au>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>     
>>>> All,
>>>>  I am interested in devloping a commercial java-based (why the language is
>>>> important is discussed later) GUI for R. The app would allow the GUI to edit
>>>> R commands and the results displayed in varios means. I have investigated
>>>> various java based libraries to invoke R and they follow the apache license
>>>> model (friendlier to commercial software developers). I understand the that
>>>> R is released under the GPL license, which I have a reasonable understanding
>>>> of.  SO my question is simple, Can I develop a a commerical GUI for R (which
>>>> would require R to be isntalled separately on the machine) without having to
>>>> also release my source code ?
>>>>
>>>> I am hoping that some of core R development team see this and can provide
>>>> useful feedback.
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Serge
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>>       
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