A correction and clarification...
It is MY package's GPL-2 license that is being violated by the other package --
not its GPL-3 license.
Let me lay it out with some generic names:
* The 'foo' package specifies a GPL-2 license
* The 'bar' package depends on 'foo', but specifies a GPL-3 license. That
violates foo's GPL-2 license.
More details:
* 'foo' provides a particular type of analysis embodied in a function named
'manchoo',
and provides methods for various classes.
* 'bar' provides an S3 method for 'manchoo', via statements like this in its
NAMESPACE file:
importFrom(foo, manchoo)
S3method(manchoo, bar)
* The developer of 'foo' welcomes such expanded availability of 'manchoo'
methods.
So there seem to be two ways to resolve this:
1. The developer of 'foo' changes its license to GPL-3 (does that indeed
resolve the license issue?)
-- OR --
2. The developer of 'bar' removes the dependency on 'foo', by not importing
'manchoo' or its
S3method; instead, it simply exports the function 'manchoo.bar' and moves
'foo' to Suggests
Thanks for any suggestions
Russ
-----Original Message-----
From: Lenth, Russell V
Sent: Saturday, November 5, 2016 9:28 PM
To: 'r-package-devel@r-project.org' <r-package-devel@r-project.org>
Subject: Relicense to GPL-3?
Dear all,
I received an email from a user telling me that another package that depends on
my package is licensed GPL(>=3), whereas mine is licensed GPL-2; and that
therefore, the other package is in violation of its GPL-3 license. This
apparently causes an issue with the Debian packaging system, throwing that
other package into the "unstable" category.
Moreover, the correspondent asks me if I would consider changing the license
for my package. To what is not specified, but I guess it would be to GPL-3.
I don't really understand why this isn't the other developer's problem and not
mine. But on the other hand, I don't want to cause problems for others. The
licensing stuff is hard for me to understand - in large part because of low
motivation to dig into it; I really would rather think about providing better
code and features than all sorts of legal gobble-de-gook. Nonetheless, I guess
this stuff is important to some people (e.g., Debian) so I suppose I had better
get it right.
My decision to put GPL-2 in the first place was primarily expedience: it seemed
like what people wanted. So is GPL-3 "better"? Do I risk anything by changing
it? Do I risk anything by not changing it? How much does it matter, really?
Thanks
Russ
Russell V. Lenth - Professor Emeritus
Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science The University of Iowa - Iowa
City, IA 52242 USA Voice (319)335-0712 (Dept. office) - FAX (319)335-3017
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