Perhaps I have misread that excerpt from WRE, but my read is that package authors should not duplicate GNU COPYING, since it is present in all R distributions already when using GPL-2 and friends. It doesn't apply to packages distributed with other licenses.
It should be noted that in GPL FAQ just below the part you quoted it says > A clear statement in the program's README file is legally sufficient as long > as that accompanies the code, but it is easy for them to get separated. On Sat, 12 Sep 2020 at 09:06, Hadley Wickham <h.wick...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Hi all, > > R-exts currently requests that package authors don't include copies of > standard licenses: > > > Whereas you should feel free to include a license file in your source > > distribution, please do > > not arrange to install yet another copy of the GNU COPYING or COPYING.LIB > > files but > > refer to the copies on https://www.R-project.org/Licenses/ and included in > > the R distribution > > (in directory share/licenses). Since files named LICENSE or LICENCE will be > > installed, > > do not use these names for standard license files. > > I'd like to request that this condition be removed because it makes it > overly difficult to ensure that every version of your package (source, > tar.gz, binary, and installed) includes the full text of the license. > This is important because most open source licenses explicitly require > that you include the full text of the license. For example, the GPL > faq (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WhyMustIInclude) states: > > > Why does the GPL require including a copy of the GPL with every copy of the > > program? > > (#WhyMustIInclude) > > > > Including a copy of the license with the work is vital so that everyone who > > gets a copy of > > the program can know what their rights are. > > > > It might be tempting to include a URL that refers to the license, instead > > of the license > > itself. But you cannot be sure that the URL will still be valid, five years > > or ten years from > > now. Twenty years from now, URLs as we know them today may no longer exist. > > > > The only way to make sure that people who have copies of the program will > > continue > > to be able to see the license, despite all the changes that will happen in > > the network, > > is to include a copy of the license in the program. > > This analysis by an open source lawyer, > https://writing.kemitchell.com/2016/09/21/MIT-License-Line-by-Line.html#notice-condition, > reinforces the same message for the MIT license. > > Currently we've been working around this limitation by putting a > markdown version of the license in LICENSE.md and then adding that to > .Rbuildignore (this ensures that the source version on GitHub includes > the license even if the CRAN version does not). Ideally, as well as > allowing us to include full text of licenses in LICENSE or > LICENSE.txt, a LICENSE.md at the top-level of the package would also > be explicitly permitted. > > Hadley > > -- > http://hadley.nz > > ______________________________________________ > 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
