Re: [Rd] forking a CRAN project
Micheal, Keep in mind that the author of the package can give you a copy under any conditions that they choose, they are not bound by the GPL. Simply send you code from their own source which is upstream of the GPL copy. (The copy out on CRAN propogates strictly via GPL however). You could for instance start a new package de novo. This may or may not make sense in your case, but I wanted to point out the flexibility. A version of rpart has twice been bundled into commercial products via this route, where the user didn't want to be under the GPL. None in the last 8-10 years; as Brian Ripley's and my contributions to rpart are now far too comingled to define a non-gpl code base. I'll also note that in both those cases my employer took the quite defensible position that contributions to a for profit company are not free of charge. On 03/05/2014 05:00 AM, r-devel-requ...@r-project.org wrote: There is a CRAN package licensed just as GPL, say, XX, I want to use in a book. But I've needed to modify the package to make it do what I need for expository purposes. The package author(s) are amenable to my modifications, but probably unlikely to incorporate them into the CRAN version any time soon. Am I allowed, under GPL, to create a new version of the package, say XX2, in a public repository such as R-Forge or github? I would, of course, maintain their authorship, though perhaps take over the maintainer role. For my purposes in the book, I don't necessarily need to release my version to CRAN; just a public repo a reader could download from. -Michael __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
[Rd] forking a CRAN project
There is a CRAN package licensed just as GPL, say, XX, I want to use in a book. But I've needed to modify the package to make it do what I need for expository purposes. The package author(s) are amenable to my modifications, but probably unlikely to incorporate them into the CRAN version any time soon. Am I allowed, under GPL, to create a new version of the package, say XX2, in a public repository such as R-Forge or github? I would, of course, maintain their authorship, though perhaps take over the maintainer role. For my purposes in the book, I don't necessarily need to release my version to CRAN; just a public repo a reader could download from. -Michael -- Michael Friendly Email: friendly AT yorku DOT ca Professor, Psychology Dept. Chair, Quantitative Methods York University Voice: 416 736-2100 x66249 Fax: 416 736-5814 4700 Keele StreetWeb: http://www.datavis.ca Toronto, ONT M3J 1P3 CANADA __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] forking a CRAN project
As usual: For legal advice, get a lawyer... However, yes, the GPL quite expressedly allows licencees to distribute modified versions, provided that the modified source code is made available and is redistributable under the GPL. It's common courtesy and possibly also required by law (the GPL itself doesn't say anything about it) to ensure that the original statements of authorship and copyright are retained. One thing to be slightly cautious about is to avoid inadvertent copyright transfer to your publisher of things that are also in the package. The back pages of ISwR (the book) has copies of the help pages for ISwR (the package), but Reproduced with permission so that Springer doesn't have the copyright for that part of the book. Not that they are likely to care, but better safe than sorry. -Peter D On 04 Mar 2014, at 16:50 , Michael Friendly frien...@yorku.ca wrote: There is a CRAN package licensed just as GPL, say, XX, I want to use in a book. But I've needed to modify the package to make it do what I need for expository purposes. The package author(s) are amenable to my modifications, but probably unlikely to incorporate them into the CRAN version any time soon. Am I allowed, under GPL, to create a new version of the package, say XX2, in a public repository such as R-Forge or github? I would, of course, maintain their authorship, though perhaps take over the maintainer role. For my purposes in the book, I don't necessarily need to release my version to CRAN; just a public repo a reader could download from. -Michael -- Michael Friendly Email: friendly AT yorku DOT ca Professor, Psychology Dept. Chair, Quantitative Methods York University Voice: 416 736-2100 x66249 Fax: 416 736-5814 4700 Keele StreetWeb: http://www.datavis.ca Toronto, ONT M3J 1P3 CANADA __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel -- Peter Dalgaard, Professor Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark Phone: (+45)38153501 Email: pd@cbs.dk Priv: pda...@gmail.com __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
