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Copyrights for R contributed libraries

Douglas Bates 
I have been packaging both R and the R contributed libraries for the
Debian GNU/Linux operating system.  Right now if anyone installs
Debian Linux on an Intel machine or a DEC Alpha they will have the
option of installing R as a regular part of the operating system.  I
think this is a good way of getting wider distribution of high quality
statistical software.  The Linux community is growing rapidly and is
one of the highlights of the free software effort.  I have heard from
several people who started using R because it was included with 
Debian Linux.
 
Since vendors are encouraged to make CD-ROM's from the entire
distribution, the Debian organization is very careful about copyrights 
for the code.  The base R language is covered by the GNU Public
License (GPL) but some of the contributed libraries have other
copyright statements.  As a result I have divided the libraries into
r-cran, the contributed libraries that are covered by a copyright that 
follows the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG), r-cran-non-free,
the contributed libraries that do not seem to be DFSG-compliant, and
r-mlbench.  That mlbench library is split into its own package because 
it is large and not everyone wants to install it.

I have just been informed (see below) that the copyright statement I
made about the r-cran-non-free package is insufficient.  I have to
clarify the copyright status of every library included in this
package.  I'm a little pressed for time right now and may not be able
to do this by myself.  My only option then would be to withdraw the
package.  I think that would be a shame because the package contains
very useful libraries like the survival analysis library.

I believe Kurt and Fritz are going to start to ask for contributed
libraries to include a statement of copyright as part of the
submission to CRAN.  That would help me a lot.  Could anyone
converting a library or writing a new library please take care to
include a copyright statement?  If you are converting a library and
the copyright status of the original code seems murky, please try to
contact the original authors and get the copyright status cleared up.

If we could quickly establish a format for the copyright file for a
submitted library and contributors could update their libraries, that
again would help a lot.  I don't like making work for others but I
think there are great benefits from this.  I believe that it is
helpful to have good cooperation between the Debian organization and
the R developers.

I personally prefer the GPL for code but the "Artistic" license under
which perl is distributed or the BSD-style license are also acceptable
for the regular Debian distribution.

Feel free to contact me if I can provide further information.