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[R-pkg-devel] Best practise in including third party code

2 messages · Wolfgang Lenhard, Ben Bolker

Original
Wolfgang Lenhard
# 
Dear R developer list,
in general, if functionality from other packages are used in one's own 
package, it is of course the best way to declare the other package as an 
import. What is the straight forward way for only minor functions or 
functionality, especially when the other package comes with a lot 
dependencies itself? Is it advisable or ok to only use the according 
third party source code snippet and cite the other package (of course if 
the license of the package allows it; own package is AGPL, third package 
is GPL)? Or should the third party package always be installed as a 
dependency? I want to avoid bloating the installation process but it is 
very important for me not to violate academic standards, intellectual 
properties and best practise.

Thanks,
Wolfgang
Ben Bolker
# 
I would recommend copying the snippet/minor function into your own
code, with attribution/citation (and, as a courtesy, e-mailing the
maintainer of the package to let them know).
   The only disadvantage I can think of in this approach is that you
won't automatically benefit from bug fixes or other improvements in
the upstream code.

  cheers
    Ben Bolker

On Wed, Nov 18, 2020 at 5:45 AM Wolfgang Lenhard
<wolfgang.lenhard at uni-wuerzburg.de> wrote: