Re: [R-pkg-devel] GPL + other licence

[David C Sterratt]

Thanks to all for your helpful replies.

It seems reasonable to consider that the whole package is indeed
licensed under GPL >= 3, and I can therefore remove the LICENSE file.
The Qhull COPYING.txt notice is included in the inst/doc directory, as
required by the Qhull licence, so I think all should be OK.

If the CRAN maintainers are happy with this proposal, that will resolve
a major R-packaging headache, so thanks again.

Best wishes,

David.


On Wed 11 Apr 2018 at 16:58 BST, Martyn Plummer  wrote:

> I agree with Brian. This type of license is classified by the Free
> Software Foundation as "lax" or "permissive" because it does not
> prevent incorporation of the code into proprietary software.
>
> Here is what Richard Stallman has to say: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/
> license-compatibility.en.html
>
> "[L]ax licenses are usually compatible with any copyleft license. In
> the combined program, the parts that came in under lax licenses still
> carry them, and the combined program as a whole carries the copyleft
> license."
>
> Hence you can license your package under the GPL.
>
> Martyn
>
> On Tue, 2018-04-10 at 08:14 -0500, Brian G. Peterson wrote:
>> I'm not a lawyer, but I don't see why the entire package can't be
>> released under GPL, while also respecting the QHull license for the
>> QHull code and the derived QHull portions.
>>
>> Many existing R packages released under GPL, and R itself, include BSD
>> and MIT licensed code.
>>
>> The QHull license is a very permissive license, basically BSD or MIT-
>> like in its permissions.
>>
>> BSD and MIT code may be included in GPL'd code, as long as its license
>> (inclusion of the copyright notice, etc.) is also included where
>> required.
>>
>> GPL applies to the entire work, in this case the R package.  I think
>> you should discuss this with the CRAN maintainers and release the
>> package under GPL.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Brian
>>


--
David C Sterratt, Senior Research Associate
Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation, School of Informatics
University of Edinburgh, 10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh EH8 9AB, Scotland, UK
http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/sterratt - tel: +44 131 651 1739

-- 
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

__
R-package-devel@r-project.org mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel

Re: [R-pkg-devel] GPL + other licence

[Martyn Plummer]

I agree with Brian. This type of license is classified by the Free
Software Foundation as "lax" or "permissive" because it does not
prevent incorporation of the code into proprietary software.

Here is what Richard Stallman has to say: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/
license-compatibility.en.html

"[L]ax licenses are usually compatible with any copyleft license. In
the combined program, the parts that came in under lax licenses still
carry them, and the combined program as a whole carries the copyleft
license." 

Hence you can license your package under the GPL.

Martyn

On Tue, 2018-04-10 at 08:14 -0500, Brian G. Peterson wrote:
> I'm not a lawyer, but I don't see why the entire package can't be
> released under GPL, while also respecting the QHull license for the
> QHull code and the derived QHull portions.
> 
> Many existing R packages released under GPL, and R itself, include BSD
> and MIT licensed code.
> 
> The QHull license is a very permissive license, basically BSD or MIT-
> like in its permissions.
> 
> BSD and MIT code may be included in GPL'd code, as long as its license
> (inclusion of the copyright notice, etc.) is also included where
> required.
> 
> GPL applies to the entire work, in this case the R package.  I think
> you should discuss this with the CRAN maintainers and release the
> package under GPL.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Brian
> 
__
R-package-devel@r-project.org mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel

Re: [R-pkg-devel] GPL + other licence

[Hadley Wickham]

On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 2:45 AM, Kasper Daniel Hansen
 wrote:
> There are 3 solutions.  (1) You (get permission) to change the library to
> GPL.  (2) You get permission to change the license of the R code to
> whatever license the library is released under.  (3) you split the package.

For completeness: (4) you find a license that is compatible with both
the license of QHull and the license of the existing R package.

> You have investigated (1) and it does not work.  I would suggest thinking
> about (2) provided the license of the library is decent.  This is what we
> did with Rgraphviz some years ago; Graphviz itself is licensed under the
> Eclipse public license and there was no way I could get a company to change
> the license of that code.
>
> I would do whatever I can to avoid splitting the package.
>
> Best,
> Kasper
>
> On Fri, Apr 6, 2018 at 8:44 PM, David C Sterratt 
> wrote:
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> I'd appreciate help with a licence conundrum I have with the geometry
>> package (https://davidcsterratt.github.io/geometry/) that I maintain.
>>
>> The geometry package contains some functions (e.g. convhulln(),
>> delaunayn()) that wrap the Qhull library (http://www.qhull.org), which
>> has its own, non-GPL, licence. The geometry package includes this source
>> code, and wraps it in C files that have GPL licence headers.
>>
>> The geometry package also has functions that are not derived from Qhull
>> code and which are licensed under GPL, including a number of functions
>> that are ports of the Matlab distmesh package, and some other useful
>> functions to do with triangulation and coordinate systems (e.g.
>> tsearch() and cart2bary()).
>>
>> I inherited this situation when I took over maintaining the package 8
>> years ago, though I have added functions to both Qhull-derived and GPL
>> categories.
>>
>> In October last year I submitted the latest version of the geometry
>> package, which adds quite a bit of useful functionality:
>> https://github.com/davidcsterratt/geometry/blob/master/pkg/NEWS
>>
>> I received the following response from the CRAN maintainers:
>>
>>   For the license. It is CRAN policy that a package has to have a single
>>   license. Can you manage to convince all copyright hoders (e.g. of
>>   Qhull) to relicense under GPL?
>>
>> I tried persuading the author of Qhull. He replied:
>>
>>   There's only one license and that's the one included with the code
>>   (COPYING.txt). Several years ago, I tried to clarify the license with
>>   the Univ. of Minn. but had no success. So I think the best approach is
>>   to keep the original license as is. It has not been an issue so far.
>>
>> At the same time as I wrote to the Qhull maintainer, I wrote to the CRAN
>> maintainers:
>>
>>   I have written to the Qhull maintainer, but I doubt he will want to
>>   change the license, since Qhull is used in proprietary software such
>>   as MATLAB. Assuming this is the case, we'll have to create a new
>>   package - I would need help with managing the change for dependent
>>   packages.
>>
>> The CRAN maintainers replied:
>>
>>   Please try to find out how this can work.
>>
>> In principle I could create a package containing only the functions
>> derived from Qhull (but still with GPL headers in the wrapper C files,
>> see e.g.,
>> https://github.com/davidcsterratt/geometry/blob/
>> master/pkg/src/Rconvhulln.c
>> But wouldn't this package still have to have two licenses, due to the
>> GPL headers?
>>
>> I don't want to start on any package splitting without having a plan
>> agreed that I know will be OK for CRAN. It would be quite a bit of work,
>> as there are a number of packages that depend on geometry, so I would
>> have to check all the revdeps for functions that they call in the
>> geometry package. I would have to then perhaps write wrapper functions
>> in the geometry package to make sure any functions moved to a new
>> package still worked when called from revdeps.
>>
>> I know the CRAN maintainers are busy, so any help from the list would be
>> much appreciated.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> David.
>>
>> --
>> David C Sterratt, Senior Research Associate
>> Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation, School of Informatics
>> University of Edinburgh, 10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh EH8 9AB, Scotland,
>> UK
>> http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/sterratt - tel: +44 131 651 1739
>>
>> --
>> The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
>> Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
>>
>> __
>> R-package-devel@r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel
>>
>
> [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
> __
> R-package-devel@r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel



-- 
http://hadley.nz

__

Re: [R-pkg-devel] GPL + other licence

[Brian G. Peterson]

I'm not a lawyer, but I don't see why the entire package can't be
released under GPL, while also respecting the QHull license for the
QHull code and the derived QHull portions.

Many existing R packages released under GPL, and R itself, include BSD
and MIT licensed code.

The QHull license is a very permissive license, basically BSD or MIT-
like in its permissions.

BSD and MIT code may be included in GPL'd code, as long as its license
(inclusion of the copyright notice, etc.) is also included where
required.

GPL applies to the entire work, in this case the R package.  I think
you should discuss this with the CRAN maintainers and release the
package under GPL.

Regards,

Brian

-- 
Brian G. Peterson
http://braverock.com/brian/
Ph: 773-459-4973
IM: bgpbraverock

On Tue, 2018-04-10 at 11:45 +0200, Kasper Daniel Hansen wrote:
> There are 3 solutions.  (1) You (get permission) to change the
> library to
> GPL.  (2) You get permission to change the license of the R code to
> whatever license the library is released under.  (3) you split the
> package.
> 
> You have investigated (1) and it does not work.  I would suggest
> thinking
> about (2) provided the license of the library is decent.  This is
> what we
> did with Rgraphviz some years ago; Graphviz itself is licensed under
> the
> Eclipse public license and there was no way I could get a company to
> change
> the license of that code.
> 
> I would do whatever I can to avoid splitting the package.
> 
> Best,
> Kasper
> 
> On Fri, Apr 6, 2018 at 8:44 PM, David C Sterratt  .ac.uk>
> wrote:
> 
> > Dear all,
> > 
> > I'd appreciate help with a licence conundrum I have with the
> > geometry
> > package (https://davidcsterratt.github.io/geometry/) that I
> > maintain.
> > 
> > The geometry package contains some functions (e.g. convhulln(),
> > delaunayn()) that wrap the Qhull library (http://www.qhull.org),
> > which
> > has its own, non-GPL, licence. The geometry package includes this
> > source
> > code, and wraps it in C files that have GPL licence headers.
> > 
> > The geometry package also has functions that are not derived from
> > Qhull
> > code and which are licensed under GPL, including a number of
> > functions
> > that are ports of the Matlab distmesh package, and some other
> > useful
> > functions to do with triangulation and coordinate systems (e.g.
> > tsearch() and cart2bary()).
> > 
> > I inherited this situation when I took over maintaining the package
> > 8
> > years ago, though I have added functions to both Qhull-derived and
> > GPL
> > categories.
> > 
> > In October last year I submitted the latest version of the geometry
> > package, which adds quite a bit of useful functionality:
> > https://github.com/davidcsterratt/geometry/blob/master/pkg/NEWS
> > 
> > I received the following response from the CRAN maintainers:
> > 
> >   For the license. It is CRAN policy that a package has to have a
> > single
> >   license. Can you manage to convince all copyright hoders (e.g. of
> >   Qhull) to relicense under GPL?
> > 
> > I tried persuading the author of Qhull. He replied:
> > 
> >   There's only one license and that's the one included with the
> > code
> >   (COPYING.txt). Several years ago, I tried to clarify the license
> > with
> >   the Univ. of Minn. but had no success. So I think the best
> > approach is
> >   to keep the original license as is. It has not been an issue so
> > far.
> > 
> > At the same time as I wrote to the Qhull maintainer, I wrote to the
> > CRAN
> > maintainers:
> > 
> >   I have written to the Qhull maintainer, but I doubt he will want
> > to
> >   change the license, since Qhull is used in proprietary software
> > such
> >   as MATLAB. Assuming this is the case, we'll have to create a new
> >   package - I would need help with managing the change for
> > dependent
> >   packages.
> > 
> > The CRAN maintainers replied:
> > 
> >   Please try to find out how this can work.
> > 
> > In principle I could create a package containing only the functions
> > derived from Qhull (but still with GPL headers in the wrapper C
> > files,
> > see e.g.,
> > https://github.com/davidcsterratt/geometry/blob/
> > master/pkg/src/Rconvhulln.c
> > But wouldn't this package still have to have two licenses, due to
> > the
> > GPL headers?
> > 
> > I don't want to start on any package splitting without having a
> > plan
> > agreed that I know will be OK for CRAN. It would be quite a bit of
> > work,
> > as there are a number of packages that depend on geometry, so I
> > would
> > have to check all the revdeps for functions that they call in the
> > geometry package. I would have to then perhaps write wrapper
> > functions
> > in the geometry package to make sure any functions moved to a new
> > package still worked when called from revdeps.
> > 
> > I know the CRAN maintainers are busy, so any help from the list
> > would be
> > much appreciated.
> > 
> > Best wishes,
> > 
> > David.
> > 
> > --
> > David C Sterratt, 

Re: [R-pkg-devel] GPL + other licence

[Kasper Daniel Hansen]

There are 3 solutions.  (1) You (get permission) to change the library to
GPL.  (2) You get permission to change the license of the R code to
whatever license the library is released under.  (3) you split the package.

You have investigated (1) and it does not work.  I would suggest thinking
about (2) provided the license of the library is decent.  This is what we
did with Rgraphviz some years ago; Graphviz itself is licensed under the
Eclipse public license and there was no way I could get a company to change
the license of that code.

I would do whatever I can to avoid splitting the package.

Best,
Kasper

On Fri, Apr 6, 2018 at 8:44 PM, David C Sterratt 
wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> I'd appreciate help with a licence conundrum I have with the geometry
> package (https://davidcsterratt.github.io/geometry/) that I maintain.
>
> The geometry package contains some functions (e.g. convhulln(),
> delaunayn()) that wrap the Qhull library (http://www.qhull.org), which
> has its own, non-GPL, licence. The geometry package includes this source
> code, and wraps it in C files that have GPL licence headers.
>
> The geometry package also has functions that are not derived from Qhull
> code and which are licensed under GPL, including a number of functions
> that are ports of the Matlab distmesh package, and some other useful
> functions to do with triangulation and coordinate systems (e.g.
> tsearch() and cart2bary()).
>
> I inherited this situation when I took over maintaining the package 8
> years ago, though I have added functions to both Qhull-derived and GPL
> categories.
>
> In October last year I submitted the latest version of the geometry
> package, which adds quite a bit of useful functionality:
> https://github.com/davidcsterratt/geometry/blob/master/pkg/NEWS
>
> I received the following response from the CRAN maintainers:
>
>   For the license. It is CRAN policy that a package has to have a single
>   license. Can you manage to convince all copyright hoders (e.g. of
>   Qhull) to relicense under GPL?
>
> I tried persuading the author of Qhull. He replied:
>
>   There's only one license and that's the one included with the code
>   (COPYING.txt). Several years ago, I tried to clarify the license with
>   the Univ. of Minn. but had no success. So I think the best approach is
>   to keep the original license as is. It has not been an issue so far.
>
> At the same time as I wrote to the Qhull maintainer, I wrote to the CRAN
> maintainers:
>
>   I have written to the Qhull maintainer, but I doubt he will want to
>   change the license, since Qhull is used in proprietary software such
>   as MATLAB. Assuming this is the case, we'll have to create a new
>   package - I would need help with managing the change for dependent
>   packages.
>
> The CRAN maintainers replied:
>
>   Please try to find out how this can work.
>
> In principle I could create a package containing only the functions
> derived from Qhull (but still with GPL headers in the wrapper C files,
> see e.g.,
> https://github.com/davidcsterratt/geometry/blob/
> master/pkg/src/Rconvhulln.c
> But wouldn't this package still have to have two licenses, due to the
> GPL headers?
>
> I don't want to start on any package splitting without having a plan
> agreed that I know will be OK for CRAN. It would be quite a bit of work,
> as there are a number of packages that depend on geometry, so I would
> have to check all the revdeps for functions that they call in the
> geometry package. I would have to then perhaps write wrapper functions
> in the geometry package to make sure any functions moved to a new
> package still worked when called from revdeps.
>
> I know the CRAN maintainers are busy, so any help from the list would be
> much appreciated.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> David.
>
> --
> David C Sterratt, Senior Research Associate
> Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation, School of Informatics
> University of Edinburgh, 10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh EH8 9AB, Scotland,
> UK
> http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/sterratt - tel: +44 131 651 1739
>
> --
> The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
> Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
>
> __
> R-package-devel@r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel
>

[[alternative HTML version deleted]]

__
R-package-devel@r-project.org mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel