On Nov 6, 2014 3:36 AM, "Duncan Murdoch" <murdoch.dun...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On 06/11/2014, 5:57 AM, Peter Meissner wrote: > > Dear Listeners, > > > > ... also I read the CRAN policies and tried to solve those questions > > myself I feel very much in the need of good advise ... > > > > > > I am currently finishing a package that -- to solve some nasty problems > > with dirty data -- uses its own as.Date() equivalent methods (i.e. its > > own generic and methods). > > > > Thereby, I shamelessly copied code from the as.Date() methods from the > > base package and only made some minor adjustments. > > There's no problem doing that, as long as you respect the license. That > includes keeping the copyright notices from the files where you found > the code: see the GPL > > > > > For my main achievement was copy-pasting I feel obliged to cite the > > efforts made by base package authors - do I, should I? Currently I only > > use the help files to mention that the generic and its methods are > > basically the same as as.Date(), except this and that. > > In your package help file it would be polite to describe the > contributions from the R source code. In the DESCRIPTION file, the rule > is that all "significant" contributors must be included. You'll need to > judge that, but from your description, I'd guess this counts. > > > And if yes how to do it best? What is the standard procedure here? > > Should I include base package authors as contributors in DESCRIPTION??? > > > > Am I allowed to use MIT + file license with that or is it wrong to do so? > > No, you must use the GPL, since the code you copied is licensed under > the GPL. You can choose to use version 2 or 3 (or both). You do not > have permission to re-license R code under a different license.
Theoretically you could ask the copyright holder of that piece of code whether he/she/it allows you to use a different license. This brings up another question: who is formally the copyright holder of the R source code (and documentation)? The R Foundation, the individual who contributed the code in the first place, or someone else? You could certainly imagine a case where a piece of code was donated to R by someone, e.g. the code originates from a user-contributed package and has not been modified since. It may even be that that code was licensed under another license at the time. Henrik > > Duncan Murdoch > > > > > > > I appreciate any advise on these (I think important) but very confusing > > matters of referencing and licensing. > > > > > > Best, Peter > > > > > > PS: > > - My current description: > > https://github.com/petermeissner/wikipediatrend/blob/master/DESCRIPTION > > > > - the package specific as.Date() implementation: > > https://github.com/petermeissner/wikipediatrend/blob/master/R/wp_date.R > > > > ______________________________________________ > > R-devel@r-project.org mailing list > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel > > > > ______________________________________________ > R-devel@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
