G'day Fritz, On Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:46:49 +1100 Friedrich Leisch <friedrich.lei...@stat.uni-muenchen.de> wrote:
[...] > It is also unclear to me whether including a PDF without sources in a > GPLed package isn't a violation of the GPL (I know people who very > strongly think so). And source according to the GPL means "the > preferred form of the work for making modifications to it." So for a > PDF showing R output that would mean the text plus R code plus > data ... which boils down to XXXweave anyway. Well, GPL-2 says "This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License". I am somehow unable to locate the equivalent statement in GPL-3. Thus, under GPL-2, if the source that produces the PDF file does not contain a statement that it may be distributed under the terms of the GPL, then, in my understanding, you do not have to distribute the source. On occasions I wondered whether stating in the DESCRIPTION file that your package is GPL-2 extends this license to all other files and to those in inst/doc in particular. Or whether one should better slap a GPL-2 notice (or a GNU Free Documentation License) explicitly on the documentation. Actually, the fact that the GNU Free Documentation License exists makes me wonder whether it is tenable to apply GPL to documentation such as PDF files. But the phrase "or other work" in the above cite part of GPL-2 and the explicit `"The Program" refers to any copyrightable work' in GPL-3 seem to indicate that it is possible. Though, I guess you would still have to state *within* the (source of) vignette that it is under the GPL. But then IANAL. Cheers, Berwin ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel