It seems that using Rcpp is fine because an R library for Arrow is an optional component of the project, but will await more opinions on LEGAL-324.
+ Felix Cheung -- I wonder if you could comment further on your concerns about licensing of R build dependencies, which were mentioned elsewhere. Thanks On Thu, Aug 10, 2017 at 2:12 PM, Wes McKinney <wesmck...@gmail.com> wrote: > I started a discussion explaining the issue here: > > https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/LEGAL-324 > > On Thu, Aug 3, 2017 at 5:50 PM, Wes McKinney <wesmck...@gmail.com> wrote: >> Thanks for weighing in on this, Hadley. >> >> To your point >> >>> You can distribute the package code according to its >>> license, but whenever you bundle it with R (i.e. to actually use it) >>> the GPL will apply to the whole conglomerate. >> >> If someone wanted to create an all-GPLv2 software distribution >> containing R and a bunch of libraries, then including the R Arrow >> library would be problematic as Apache 2.0 is not compatible >> (https://www.apache.org/licenses/GPL-compatibility.html). I don't >> think this is really a problem since R users generally just install >> things from CRAN. >> >> My understanding is that ASF legal has taken issue when an Apache >> project _cannot be used at all_ without a hard GPL dependency (outside >> certain exceptions, e.g. generated build files by GPL tools). This >> makes it impossible to create a self-contained software distribution >> of the project whose code and all dependencies are Apache 2.0 >> compatible. There was the recent BSD+Patents discussion on LEGAL where >> projects were disallowed from using projects under that license as a >> hard dependency. >> >> I will open a LEGAL issue on the JIRA to discuss, but since the R >> portion of Arrow is an _optional_ part of the project, I am hopeful >> this will be deemed OK. >> >> - Wes >> >> On Thu, Aug 3, 2017 at 5:39 PM, Hadley Wickham <h.wick...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> On Thu, Aug 3, 2017 at 8:15 AM, Wes McKinney <wesmck...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>> I can open a ticket to get a definitive answer to these questions. >>>> >>>> From http://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#platform and the >>>> subsequent questions there, I view the R language and build tools like >>>> Rcpp as part of the "R platform", which is, for the most part, all >>>> GPL. SparkR depends on R, but only has testthat (MIT) as a dependency >>>> beyond the R runtime. I think it is challenging to build high quality >>>> software for the R platform relying only on the main R runtime and the >>>> limited third party components which happens to be released under >>>> non-CategoryX licenses. >>> >>> Some legal advice is probably needed, but do also see this statement >>> from the R Foundation about package licenses: >>> https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-devel/2009-May/053248.html >>> >>> In general, the R community has taken the opinion that it is ok to >>> license code that links to R with non-GPL (but GPL-compatible) >>> licenses. You can distribute the package code according to its >>> license, but whenever you bundle it with R (i.e. to actually use it) >>> the GPL will apply to the whole conglomerate. >>> >>> So including an R arrow package would be fine according to the general >>> standards of the R community. The Apache legal counsel may of course >>> disagree. >>> >>> Hadley >>> >>> -- >>> http://hadley.nz
