[R-pkg-devel] [R] a question of etiquette

IANAL, but the GPL family of licenses is VIRAL copy left so it infects
anything it touched, which is why many shy away and prefer something
like
the Mozilla Public License 2 (MPL) as a compromise between viral
copyleft
and the permissive MIT/ISC/BSD2.

Avi

On Tue, Jun 2, 2020 at 7:32 PM R. Mark Sharp <rmsharp at me.com> wrote:

Spencer,

I apologize for my obvious (in hindsight) error in bringing up the

topic.

I will bring up one example, because of your request. Google has

listed

GPL-1, 2, and 3 as one of several licenses that are restricted and

cannot

be used by a Google product delivered to outside customers. This

include

downloadable client software and software such as insdie the Google

Search

Appliance. This includes having scripts that load packages

dynamically as

with ?library()? and ?require()?. Please see
https://opensource.google/docs/thirdparty/licenses/#restricted for

their

wording.

I am not defending their position and disagree with it. However, it

is

their position based on what I think is a conservative or overly

cautious

legal interpretation. I am not a lawyer, however, so my opinions are

of no

import.

Mark
R. Mark Sharp, Ph.D.
Data Scientist and Biomedical Statistical Consultant
7526 Meadow Green St.
San Antonio, TX 78251
mobile: 210-218-2868
rmsharp at me.com

On Jun 2, 2020, at 10:22 AM, Spencer Graves <

spencer.graves at effectivedefense.org> wrote:

      Can Dr. Sharp kindly provide a credible reference, discussing

the

alleged ambiguities in GPL-2 and GPL-3 that convince some companies

to

avoid them?

      I like Wikimedia Foundation projects like Wikipedia, where

almost

anyone can change almost anything, and what stays tends to be written

from

a neutral point of view, citing credible sources.  I get several

emails a

day notifying me of changes in articles I'm "watching".  FUD,

vandalism,

etc., are generally reverted fairly quickly or moved to the "Talk"

page

associated with each article, where the world is invited to provide
credible source(s).

      Spencer Graves


On 2020-06-02 10:12, Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:

On 2 June 2020 at 10:06, R. Mark Sharp wrote:
| The GPL-2 and GPL-3 licenses are apparently sufficiently

ambiguous in

the legal community that some companies avoid them.

Wittgenstein:  'That whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must

remain

silent'

This is a mailing list of the R project. R is a GNU Project. R is

licensed

under the GPL, version two or later. That has not stopped large

corporations

from using R, adopting R, or starting or acquiring R related

businesses.

If you have a strong urge to spread FUD about the GPL and R, could

you

have the

modicum of etiquette to not do it on a mailing list of the R

Project?

Dirk

<mailto:R-package-devel at r-project.org>

mailing list