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License statement

4 messages · David Scott, Duncan Murdoch, Scott Gonyea +1 more

Original
David Scott
# 
I am writing a package for a company for its internal use only.

What is an appropriate license statement for the DESCRIPTION file?

I would like a statement which reflects the private and proprietary 
nature of the package, giving copyright to the writer and the company. I 
also don't want to violate the licensing of R and the packages I am 
using (RODBC, ggplot2, zoo).

David Scott
Duncan Murdoch
#
On 22/12/2010 5:35 PM, David Scott wrote:
I think "Internal use only, not for distribution" is reasonable.  The 
copyright statement is separate from the license; you can list that 
somewhere else.
I don't know the license terms of those packages, but the license of R 
lets you use it with your own private code with very few restrictions. 
The restrictions come if you choose to make copies or modifications of R 
and give or sell them to people.  So if you are giving this company your 
own package, we don't care how you license it to them.

If you are putting together an installer that includes both R and the 
package, then I would say you must license the package under the GPL, 
and make the source code available to the company you're giving it to. 
You needn't distribute it to anyone else, but you can't stop the company 
from doing so.  So if it is private because you don't want it released 
but the company might want to redistribute it, then don't package it 
with R.  If it is private because the company doesn't want it released, 
then license it in whatever way you and they agree is reasonable.

But don't trust what I write as legal advice.

Duncan Murdoch
Scott Gonyea
# 
Heh.  That's annoying.  The R Mailing List should really set the "reply-to" header.

I wrote two e-mail, so here they are:


There's a 'source' command in R, so I should not use that word.  If you're not copying out chunks of code and inserting them, you own the code itself.  No one can somehow take that away from you, unless they paid you to write it and your contract does not say that you own it.

The big issue is "bundling."  ie, creating a .tgz with all of the R packages AND your stuff (source code OR binary), IF your licenses are incompatible AND you intend to distribute your new "package"--that is, distribution external from whichever entity claims ownership.

Scott


Which was a correction to:


The issue is the bundling of the code, contained inside those packages.  As long as you're not sourcing material from inside them, license it how you want.  If you want, your license should be stamped at the top of your source files with something like:

# [COMPANY] CONFIDENTIAL. DISTRIBUTION OF THIS SOURCE CODE IS PROHIBITED. [HR POLICY]

Scott


Scott^3
On Dec 22, 2010, at 2:35 PM, David Scott wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

  
  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Gavin Simpson
    

    

      
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On Wed, 2010-12-22 at 18:04 -0800, Scott Gonyea wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        
No it shouldn't, if you mean set the list as the reply-to address that
i. If I want to reply to a message you sent, I Reply to you. If I want
that reply to go to all recipients of *your* message I Reply-All
instead. Users should think about where their messages go not blindly
click things in their mailer.

I am on one list where the Reply-To header *is* set (to the list) and
you would not believe the amount of crap, personal replies we get there
because users click Reply without thinking and send their stuff to the
list.

G