Add license

[mschilli87]

fixes #23

• GPL-3 was indicated in DESCRIPTION:
  

  loomR/DESCRIPTION

  Line 31 in df0144b

  License: GPL-3

• Copyright was assigned based on git log.

[mojaveazure]

Hi Marcel,

Thanks for catching this. We haven't actually decided on what license to release loomR under, I simply put GPL-3 in the DESCRIPTION to get R CMD check to stop bugging me about it when testing if the package builds properly or not. As we prepare for a proper CRAN release, we'll finalize the license and ensure it's included in the package.

[mschilli87]

@mojaveazure: Does that mean that by cloning your repo, modifying the source and sharing the improved code with my colleagues I would currently break copyright-law as I did not get a written permission signed by all the authors? What stops you from releasing it under a (restrictive?) free license now and re-license under a (more permissive?) license later on (if you end up choosing to do so)?

[mschilli87]

A quick check of your dependencies shows the following licenses for code you build on top of:

• R6 - MIT
• hdf5r - Apache
• iterators - Apache
• itertools - GPL-2

When using GPL-licensed libraries, I guess if not even legally required (I am no lawyer by any means!), releasing ones own code under a GPL-compatible license would be the ethical choice either way.

[mojaveazure]

Hi Marcel,

The biggest reason I haven't chosen a proper license is I have to compare the requirements of or dependent packages as well as loompy, the piece of software that loomR is inspired by. Ideally, I'd license loomR under something like the DBAD license and be done with it, but I doubt CRAN will let that fly. Until a proper license file is included in loomR, you can consider this licensed under DBAD (changed as of 0927362 to reflect this)

[rekado]

I'd like to note that (unlike the various versions of the GPL, the BSD licenses, and the Expat/MIT license) the DBAD license is not a free software license, so loomR could not be included in free software distributions such as Debian or GNU Guix.

[mschilli87]

@mojaveazure: Over a year has passed. Nothing changed. Just stopping by to let you know I will recommend not using this package if anyone asks. We use software to publish papers. We make it publicly known we used the software for reasearch and certain parties (e.g. publishers) benefit from our work using that software financially. Unclear licensing terms and zero interest in clarifying it are simply not acceptable.