license issues R vs. PostgreSQL
This is not really a matter for r-sig-db, and neither this group nor R-core are going to give advice on licensing issues (we are not lawyers, for a start). You could consult FSF for the meaning of GPL, but I am pretty sure that the contamination principle would apply. libR is GPL-ed, and that is unlikely to change. Since linking against libreadline is considered to need GPL, I expect the same arguments to be applied to libR. Already R has interfaces to (and has been embedded into) several DBMSs, included being previously embedded into PostgreSQL (by Duncan Temple Lang, with sources formerly at least on www.omegahat.org, and still accessible on CRAN/Omegahat, so it may well be still on www.omegahat.org). I am afraid I don't see what makes PL/R (which we have not seen) a special case.
On Tue, 11 Feb 2003, Andrew Piskorski wrote:
Hello, Joe Conway <mail at joeconway.com> recently announced on the PostgreSQL hackers list that he will soon be releasing PL/R, R embedded as a procedural language inside Postgres: http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers/2003-02/msg00142.php For code maintenance and enhancement reasons, it seems that both Joe and the Postgres developers would like to have PL/R in the Postgres main source tree. However, the Postgres people are insist on a BSD license for anything in that repository. (I'm not sure why exactly.) Now, Joe apparently is happy to license his code under BSD, but he used libR, which I think is only licensed under GPL, *not* LGPL. Which means that Joe can't use the BSD license, right? Basically, resolving this license issue is the only thing preventing Joe from releasing PL/R, something I and many Postgres users would definitely like to see! So, do you have any suggestions for possible solutions, or whom Joe should talk to? May Joe use the BSD license on his PL/R code as things currently stand with R? What license changes would need to happen in R for Joe to license PL/R under BSD? Would the R project be willing to make such changes?
How can we answer the last unless you tell us the answer to the second?
Brian D. Ripley, ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk Professor of Applied Statistics, http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/ University of Oxford, Tel: +44 1865 272861 (self) 1 South Parks Road, +44 1865 272866 (PA) Oxford OX1 3TG, UK Fax: +44 1865 272595