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Does anyone have speculations about the implications of the GPL for
data included in a package, or more generally for restricting use of data?
The specific use case is that I have a package which is otherwise
GPL (version unspecified at present). There are various data sets
included, but they are all essentially in the public domain. I'm
thinking about including another data set, but the original author of
that data might like to impose some reasonable restrictions (e.g.
please don't use in an academic publication without explicit
permission ...) Would such rules be expected to be compatible with
CRAN rules? Will having the package be "GPL except for file XXX, see
LICENSE" mess things up horribly?
I can of course make the data available for download and include a
link, and/or make a special package that contains only these data, but
it would seem to be more convenient for end users, and more
future-proof, to put everything in one place.
I know I will eventually need to take this up with CRAN, but I'm
looking for reasonably informed opinions/suggestions ...
cheers
Ben Bolker
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I think this is covered well by the CRAN repository policy: http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/policies.html The two key license requirements are that: 1) CRAN must have a perpetual license to distribute the package 2) The package license should be listed here: https://svn.r-project.org/R/trunk/share/licenses/license.db Packages with licenses not included in that list are generally not accepted. However, there are exceptions, and you can find some by searching for "non-commercial site:cran.r-project.org" on Google. See also section 1.1.2 of the Writing R Extensions manual for an explanation. Personally, I would not want to add the extra complexity to a package that is otherwise GPL. Martyn On Tue, 2015-04-21 at 19:23 -0400, Ben Bolker wrote:> Does anyone have speculations about the implications of the GPL for > data included in a package, or more generally for restricting use of data? > > The specific use case is that I have a package which is otherwise > GPL (version unspecified at present). There are various data sets > included, but they are all essentially in the public domain. I'm > thinking about including another data set, but the original author of > that data might like to impose some reasonable restrictions (e.g. > please don't use in an academic publication without explicit > permission ...) Would such rules be expected to be compatible with > CRAN rules? Will having the package be "GPL except for file XXX, see > LICENSE" mess things up horribly? > > I can of course make the data available for download and include a > link, and/or make a special package that contains only these data, but > it would seem to be more convenient for end users, and more > future-proof, to put everything in one place. > > I know I will eventually need to take this up with CRAN, but I'm > looking for reasonably informed opinions/suggestions ... > > cheers > Ben Bolker > > > ______________________________________________ > R-devel at r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel----------------------------------------------------------------------- This message and its attachments are strictly confidenti...{{dropped:8}}
Martyn Plummer <plummerm <at> iarc.fr> writes:> > I think this is covered well by the CRAN repository policy: > http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/policies.html > > The two key license requirements are that: > 1) CRAN must have a perpetual license to distribute the package > 2) The package license should be listed here: > https://svn.r-project.org/R/trunk/share/licenses/license.db > Packages with licenses not included in that list are generally not > accepted. >...> > Personally, I would not want to add the extra complexity to a package > that is otherwise GPL. > > Martyn > > On Tue, 2015-04-21 at 19:23 -0400, Ben Bolker wrote: > > Does anyone have speculations about the implications of the GPL for > > data included in a package, or more generally for restricting use of data? > >... While I agree with Martyn with respect to code, documentation, and vignettes, the point Ben raises is relevant and not obvious. Data sets in say GLP-licensed packages are on occasion challenged by Debian packagers where it isn't obvious that GPL is appropriate. Some spatial packages are not accepted for packaging as is because of included data, data that is needed to run realistic examples. The problem could be picky packagers, but it is also reasonable that well-known example data sets could be licensed differently. share/licenses/license.db lists for example CC BY-SA 4.0 as both FOSS and extensible but free_and_GPLv3_incompatible. One possibility I examined when challenged was to place all such data files in a separate package, for example under a CC license accepted by CRAN - I didn't complete the task, but understand Ben's question as applying to the same question. Roger> > > > cheers > > Ben Bolker > > > >>