library() asks user to accept license of some built-in packages

On 27/09/2016 10:49, Mikko Korpela wrote:

When 'getOption("checkPackageLicense")' is 'TRUE' and the user calls
'library(grid)' for the first time, R asks the user to either accept or
decline the package license. This should not be necessary as the package
license is "Part of R ..." with "..." denoting the R version number, and
R is free and open source.

The unnecessary license question is asked for the built-in packages
"compiler", "grid" and "parallel".

The source file where the checks happen is
"src/library/base/R/library.R". I think one solution could be to add
something like

if(identical(pkgInfo$DESCRIPTION[["Priority"]], "base")) return()

to the beginning of checkLicense(), or add more packages to the
hard-coded exemption list checked before calling checkLicense().

Rather, the analysis code has been told about the current licence for
standard packages.

Also, in find.package(), the shortcut list of standard packages is
missing "compiler".

Which was intentional when the code was written (it is just a shortcut)
but as 'compiler' is getting used more, it has been added.