From Kurt.Hornik at wu.ac.at  Fri Sep 11 17:25:33 2009
From: Kurt.Hornik at wu.ac.at (Kurt Hornik)
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:25:33 +0200
Subject: [Rd] Non-GPL packages for R
In-Reply-To: <4AAA4B77.8070601@uottawa.ca>
References: <4AA93C58.1050406@uottawa.ca>
	<971536df0909101126g3b57647fv4c4d74f0eb47b0e9@mail.gmail.com>
	<19113.31229.97906.452635@ron.nulle.part>
	<4AA98451.3040003@prodsyse.com> <4AAA4B77.8070601@uottawa.ca>
Message-ID: <19114.27629.237533.119608@fangorn.hornik.net>

>>>>> Prof John C Nash writes:

> The responses to my posting yesterday seem to indicate more consensus 
> than I expected:
> 1) CRAN should be restricted to GPL-equivalent licensed packages
> 2) r-forge could be left "buyer beware" using DESCRIPTION information
> 3) We may want a specific repository for restricted packages (RANC?)

> How to proceed? A short search on Rseek did not turn up a chain of 
> command for CRAN.

I thought I had already explained the last time the GPL-only suggestion
came up that this will not happen for CRAN.

But again: we have invested considerable time into getting the license
specs standardized, and writing code to compute on these.  Time
permitting, R 2.10.0 will feature code that allows specifying license
filters which can be customized according to individuals' needs.  But I
see no point in physically representing one particular license profile.

Btw, there are less non-free packages on CRAN than packages which claim
to be free but have non-free installation dependencies: some would argue
that the latter is impossible from a license perspective.  I feel little
desire to start arguing about this, as being able to control package
installation by license filters will resolve matters anyway.

-k


> I'm prepared to help out with documentation etc. to move changes 
> forward. They are not, in my opinion, likely to cause a lot of trouble 
> for most users, and should simplify things over time.

> JN

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[Rd] Non-GPL packages for R
Kurt Hornik