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[R-gui] GPL licensing issues with a commercial R GUI

13 messages · Serge Merzliakov, Gavin Simpson, Michael Lawrence +4 more

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All,
  I am interested in devloping a commercial java-based (why the language 
is important is discussed later) GUI for R. The app would allow the GUI 
to edit R commands and the results displayed in varios means. I have 
investigated various java based libraries to invoke R and they follow 
the apache license model (friendlier to commercial software developers). 
I understand the that R is released under the GPL license, which I have 
a reasonable understanding of.  SO my question is simple, Can I develop 
a a commerical GUI for R (which would require R to be isntalled 
separately on the machine) without having to also release my source code ?

I am hoping that some of core R development team see this and can 
provide useful feedback.

Regards,
Serge
1 day later
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I am not a lawyer, but at important distinction here is what one means
by "linked". You're not linking against R if you just run some R code
through it and capture the output for example. This is how Brodgar, for
example, does what Serge wants to achieve --- see their statement on R,
Brodgar and the GPL:

www.brodgar.com

http://www.brodgar.com/brodgar.htm#2.%20Brodgar%20and%20R

Whilst, from a personal point of view agree with Michael's statement
about producing an open source app and then sell support, we all don;t
have to follow that moral.

G
On Tue, 2008-05-13 at 02:05 -0700, Michael Lawrence wrote:
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This is exactly what I would like to do. There would be some text editor 
type functionality which would then be run through R and the outpur 
displayed.
Gavin Simpson wrote:
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Michael, All,

You may want to check the following link: www.biocep.net ,
it's about a general unified open source (Apache 2.0) solution for 
integrating R.
I have been working on it for about a year and a half, it's still work 
in progress but most of the announced features are in full working order.
I should release it before the tutorial I will be giving during useR! 
2008 (http://www.statistik.uni-dortmund.de/useR-2008/tutorials/chine.html)
Biocep use cases include : run R as a Server (RMI,HTTP,SOAP) , generate 
Web Services for R functions (stateful/stateless), deploy an R 
virtualization infrastructure,
use a highly-productive workbench to control R Servers  ( multi-platform 
GUI for R, most advanced one currently available with spreadsheet views, 
embedded jEdit,
interactive Zoom/Scroll on R graphics, extensibility with plugins,..) 
and more..
Slides can be found here : 
http://biocep-distrib.r-forge.r-project.org/distR.pdf

Best wishes,

Karim
Michael Lawrence wrote:
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On Tuesday 13 May 2008, Michael Lawrence wrote:
Since version 15, I believe, SPSS incorporated R syntax (more exactly it 
allows using R code in the syntax window).
When using R code, SPSS is nothing but a GUI, so there is at least one good 
example of having a comercial product using R...

Adrian
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Dear Karim,

I am currently using jEdit for writing R code, and I find your R integration 
highly useful. What should one do in order to link jEdit and R, is there a 
jEdit plugin or something?

Thank you,
Adrian
On Tuesday 13 May 2008, Karim Chine wrote:

  
    
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On 5/13/2008 7:46 AM, Serge Merzliakov wrote:
In your original post, you asked for feedback from the core development 
team.  But what you really need is feedback from a lawyer who 
understands copyright and the GPL.

I would assume that some copyright holder will aggressively enforce the 
GPL.  It is not enough for one or two copyright holders to tell you to 
go ahead, you have to have agreement from all of them if you are 
violating the GPL.  The copyright in R is held quite widely, so I would 
guess it is not practical to get that sort of permission.  Similarly, I 
don't think it would be practical to get permission from a subset of the 
copyright holders and rewrite the parts you don't have permission to use.

On the other hand, if what you are doing falls within the GPL, then you 
already have permission to do it.

The core development team does not know about subtleties of copyright 
law so it is not in a position to tell you whether what you want to do 
is GPL compatible or not.  If you're not sure that what you are doing is 
legal, ask a lawyer, don't ask us.

Duncan Murdoch
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Dear Adrian

Apart from the Virtual R Workbench  I've written, I am not aware of a 
software/plugin that enables the use of R from  jEdit (you have only 
extensions for enabling R syntax highlighting). The workbench embeds a 
patched version of jEdit as a view. I have added to the jEdit ToolBar 
buttons for sourcing the script beeing edited to your R Server or to the 
jython / Groovy  interpreters available on client and on server sides. 
The spreadsheet view has a similar feature + data import/export to R + 
use of R functions in computed cells .
the workbench is available:
-as an applet : 
http://biocep-distrib.r-forge.r-project.org/rworkbench_applet.html
-as a Java Web Start application : 
http://biocep-distrib.r-forge.r-project.org/rworkbench.jnlp
-as a desktop application : java -jar biocep.jar     
(http://biocep-distrib.r-forge.r-project.org/appletlibs/biocep.jar)
you've got a "Getting Started" for runnig and connecting to R Servers 
here : http://biocep-distrib.r-forge.r-project.org/doc.html#Deliverables

you may also want to have a look the flollowing eclipse plugin : 
http://www.walware.de/goto/statet
it will probably in the near future embed biocep-core to run and control 
R Servers from eclipse.

Best wishes,

Karim
Adrian Dusa wrote:
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Oh, I knew Romain was working on this plug-in, but I didn't know it was 
operational.
I'll try it and see how it works, thanks for the news.
Adrian
On Wednesday 14 May 2008, Michael Lawrence wrote:

  
    
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Hi,

I do not mind people pointing work I have done ;-)
The plugin is kind of not really operational, but I am using it. The 
version there is old, but somehow not a great deal of work has been done 
on it since. I am happy to discuss it more though.

Cheers,

Romain
Adrian Dusa wrote: