It’s necessary but not sufficient to use a licence from license.db On Fri, 23 Oct 2020 at 3:12 am, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.dun...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 22/10/2020 11:55 a.m., Marc Schwartz wrote: > > > > > >> On Oct 22, 2020, at 11:19 AM, Marc Schwartz <marc_schwa...@me.com> > wrote: > >> > >> On Oct 22, 2020, at 10:21 AM, Kevin R. Coombes < > kevin.r.coom...@gmail.com> wrote: > >>> > >>> Hi, > >>> > >>> I am developing a package and getting a NOTE from R CMD check about > licenses and ultimate dependencies on a restrictive license, which I can't > figure out how to fix. > >>> > >>> My package imports flowCore, which has an Artistic-2.0 license. > >>> But flowCore imports cytolib, which has a license from the Fred > Hutchinson Cancer Center that prohibits commercial use. > >>> > >>> I tried using the same license as flowCore, but still get the NOTE. > Does anyone know which licenses can be used to be compatible with the Fred > Hutch license? Or can I just do what flowCore apparently does and ignore > the NOTE? > >>> > >>> Thanks, > >>> Kevin > >> > >> > >> Hi Kevin, > >> > >> I have not looked at BioC's licensing requirements, but presumably, > they are ok with the non-commercial use restrictions placed on users of > cytolib, thus also on flowCore. > >> > >> If you want your package to be on CRAN, those restrictions on users are > not allowed by CRAN's policy: > >> > >> https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/policies.html > >> > >> "Such packages are not permitted to require (e.g., by specifying in > ‘Depends’, ‘Imports’ or ‘LinkingTo’ fields) directly or indirectly a > package or external software which restricts users or usage." > >> > >> > >> Thus, you would seem to need to make a decision on hosting your package > on CRAN, but without the need to import from flowCore/cytolib, or consider > hosting your package on BioC, with the attendant restrictions on commercial > use. > >> > >> Regards, > >> > >> Marc Schwartz > > > > > > Well.... > > > > Now that I look at: > > > > https://svn.r-project.org/R/trunk/share/licenses/license.db > > > > there are a few licenses listed there that do place restrictions on > commercial use. > > > > These include some Creative Commons Non-Commercial use variants and the > ACM license. > > > > Is the license DB file out of date, or is there an apparent conflict > with the CRAN policy that I quoted above? > > > > Anyone with an ability to comment? > > Presumably CRAN would not accept the non-FOSS licenses that are listed > in license.db, but R could still do computations on them, as described > in ?library in the "Licenses" section. > > Duncan Murdoch > > ______________________________________________ > R-package-devel@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ______________________________________________ R-package-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel
