On 5/19/06, Spencer Graves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'd like to know what people think is the meaning of section 2.b of > the GPL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html#SEC1): > > "You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in > whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part > thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties > under the terms of this License." > > After section 2.c, the GPL continues, "If identifiable sections of > that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably > considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this > License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you > distribute them as separate works." > > I'm not an attorney, but it would seem to me any code written in R > is > arguably "derived from" R. Even if R code were not "derived from" R, I > don't see how it could "reasonably be considered independent" of R. If > my interpretation is correct, then any claim by an R package developer > to a license more restrictive than GPL would not be enforceable; such > claim would seem to violate the spirit, intent, and letter of the GPL. > > A "boundary" case is provided by the "glmmADMB" package. As I read > the GPL, this package must operate under GPL. This means that if anyone > wants their source code, the authors of that package are required to > give it to them. I just noticed that the version of "glmmADMB" that I > downloaded 3/14/2006 does NOT contain a "src" subdirectory. This > surprises me, given the comment on "http://cran.fhcrc.org/banner.shtml" > that "we generally do not accept submissions of precompiled binaries". > That is, however, not required by the GPL, as I understand it. Rather, > it seems to say that Otter Research (http://www.otter-rsch.com/), who > distribute more general "AD Model Builder" software, could be required > to make freely available source code for all the binaries they use. > This should be fairly easy for them, because their "AD Model Builder" > produces C++ code, which they could easily include in a "src" > subdirectory of their package. The GPL would NOT require them to > distribute source code for the "AD Model Builder" itself, since that has > an independent existence. > > If anyone has any evidence contradicting the above, I'd like to > know.
This sort of question is inevitably answered in the GPL FAQ (which is intended for the non-lawyers among us, unlike the GPL): http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html My personal feeling has been that very few people on the R lists understand the GPL, so I would not recommend posts here as a source of knowledge on the matter :-) Deepayan ______________________________________________ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html