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SigmaSciences / opaR

Port of R.NET to Embarcadero Delphi
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Licensing Issue #1

Open Dave-Novo opened 8 years ago

Dave-Novo commented 8 years ago

Hello, I am very excited about your R integration. Great job. I just wanted to write a note about licensing. The GPL requirement of R precludes you distributing R with your commercial application without publishing source. However, if the user downloads and installs R on their own, there is nothing to preclude your commercial application from communicating with R. There are several commercial examples of this. RExcel is a commercial product that integrates R with Excel (http://www.statconn.com/products.html) Revolution Analytics does it as well (http://www.revolutionanalytics.com/). If you licensed your code under MPL, people could use it in a commercial application, with R, provided they had the users download and install on their own. I would ask that you consider this licensing request as it would greatly benefit the Delphi community.

rlsdevine commented 8 years ago

Hi Dave - thanks for the great feedback. I must admit I'm still mulling over the licence aspects - RExcel in particular is one that gave me pause for thought. I spent some time earlier today looking into the implications of mixing Delphi 3rd party components and GPL and it looks like it's not possible, Likewise from what I read even if the user downloads R then opaR would still be subject to GPL, but only in a "product" released for general sale. The GPL doesn't apply to software developed for corporate internal use - e.g. if you're a small Delphi shop developing custom apps for a client then it's not a problem. I'll look into this further though, please keep in touch!

Kind regards, Bob

Dave-Novo commented 8 years ago

Hello, That is not my understanding at all. Even the preamble of the GPL states:

from: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html "Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted"

If the user downloads R, then the commercial vendor is not copying, distributing or modifying the license. Simply talking to GPL software does not make the commercial software subject to GPL.

That is why GPL stuff is very useful for server side stuff. As a commercial vendor, I can put GPL stuff on a server and use it from the server, as long as I am not distributing it to clients, just serving web pages with data calculated from the GPL products.

That is my understanding. In any event, if you dual license your code, then you are in no way liable if we are incorrect in our understanding of the R license (which I do not think we are, as long as we do not distribute).

Dave-Novo commented 8 years ago

Hello,

I was wondering if you had any further thoughts on this issue.

rlsdevine commented 8 years ago

Hi Dave - I tried sending you a private email. I tried the "info" address at what I'm guessing is your domain (denovosoftware) but it bounced. My private email is in the thread with Kim Bracknell.

Cheers, Bob

Dave-Novo commented 8 years ago

Hello Bob, I am not sure how to find the thread with Kim Bracknell. As far as I can see on the site here there is only issue and that is this one. I am not an expert on github, so I may be missing something. Please feel free to email me at david.novo@denovosoftware.com.