[Rcpp-devel] Review request: Sandboxed R integration via RInside

[Christian Authmann]

Hello,

I don't want to get into lengthy legal discussions (I'm a programmer, 
not a lawyer), but let me just state my intent.

 From the way I read the GPL-FAQ
 > http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html
the GPL2 only applies to derivative work and linking.

Which means that the client, which is written in a generic, 
non-R-specific way and does not link to R headers or libraries, should 
not need to be GPL. (Yes, we're planning to use the same client code and 
network protocol to integrate other scripting languages eventually. 
setValue, getValue, setCallback and runCode should be generic enough, 
right?)
All code relevant to the server (i.e. the process linked to R) must be 
GPL of course, while shared code can be dual-licensed.

That's the way RServe interprets it (otherwise their client libs would 
need to be GPL, too), and that's the way I interpret it, which is why I 
released the client sources under the MIT license (and thus implicitely 
under GPL, too).


That means that you could include the client in a proprietary 
application and have great R integration without making your project 
open source. Some people consider that bad.

It also means that we can include R into our project at all. We're using 
a multitude of different libraries with incompatible open source 
licenses, and it seems impossible for us to include GPL code and 
distribute the results. If the client is MIT licensed, we can eventually 
release our project under a (non-GPL) open source license, which I 
consider good. If it isn't, our project would either need to ditch R 
(our scientists would hate that) or remain internal (I'd hate that).


IANAL, and if the project maintainers disagree with that view, or don't 
want non-GPL applications to even talk to RInside, then I don't have a 
problem with removing the MIT license and distributing it GPL-only 
within RInside.


So there, I'd like to talk about code now :)

-- 
Christian Authmann
Philipps-Universität Marburg
Fachbereich Mathematik und Informatik
AG Datenbanksysteme
Hans-Meerwein-Straße
D-35032 Marburg