Non-GPL packages for R

Prof John C Nash writes:

The responses to my posting yesterday seem to indicate more consensus 
than I expected:
1) CRAN should be restricted to GPL-equivalent licensed packages
2) r-forge could be left "buyer beware" using DESCRIPTION information
3) We may want a specific repository for restricted packages (RANC?)

How to proceed? A short search on Rseek did not turn up a chain of 
command for CRAN.

I thought I had already explained the last time the GPL-only suggestion
came up that this will not happen for CRAN.

But again: we have invested considerable time into getting the license
specs standardized, and writing code to compute on these.  Time
permitting, R 2.10.0 will feature code that allows specifying license
filters which can be customized according to individuals' needs.  But I
see no point in physically representing one particular license profile.

Btw, there are less non-free packages on CRAN than packages which claim
to be free but have non-free installation dependencies: some would argue
that the latter is impossible from a license perspective.  I feel little
desire to start arguing about this, as being able to control package
installation by license filters will resolve matters anyway.

-k

I'm prepared to help out with documentation etc. to move changes 
forward. They are not, in my opinion, likely to cause a lot of trouble 
for most users, and should simplify things over time.

JN

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