Oracle Broadens Support for Open-source R Analytics (PCWorld)

Posted Aug 26, 2012 16:27 UTC (Sun) by butlerm (subscriber, #13312)
In reply to: Oracle Broadens Support for Open-source R Analytics (PCWorld) by njs
Parent article: Oracle Broadens Support for Open-source R Analytics (PCWorld)

>As far as I can tell, distributing a copy of R compiled against a closed source math library like MKL or ACML is a violation of R's license (GPL).

The normal way around that would be to create an open source library that implements the same ABI as the proprietary one, compile against the open source header files, and then allow the end user to choose which implementation to load at runtime.

Oracle Broadens Support for Open-source R Analytics (PCWorld)

Posted Aug 27, 2012 17:02 UTC (Mon) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (2 responses)

Well header files should not be copyrightable so it doesn't matter which ones you compile the application against.

The GPL only covers derived works. Whether or not something is 'derived works' is not a question of the software, the license, or common sense. It's a question that only a Judge can really answer.

Regardless it's very unlikely that a GPL software will be considered a derived work of a closed library using a public API.. even if there wasn't a exception for it in the license. There are exceptions to this, but it's going to be a case-by-case basis and it's doubtful you could draw any generalized conclusions.

Not unless a Judge decides to make a sweeping change to how derived work is decided by changing the precedent.

This is USA stuff. Mileage will vary drastically based on country in question.

Oracle Broadens Support for Open-source R Analytics (PCWorld)

Posted Aug 27, 2012 22:34 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (1 responses)

Header files should not be copyrightable? Really? Function prototypes, perhaps, but you do realise that some headers can contain really quite a lot of actual code? (Look at the libstdc++ headers sometime, or the obstack headers, or, hell, bits/*inline*.h from your installed glibc. If *that* isn't copyrightable, *no* code is copyrightable.)

Oracle Broadens Support for Open-source R Analytics (PCWorld)

Posted Aug 27, 2012 22:40 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

Header files shouldn't be copyrightable when they contain no functionality or only trivial functionality.

Complex header files (a-la Boost header-only libraries), of course, are copyrightable.