Comments regarding r-cran-spdep_0.5-92-1_amd64.changes

[Roger Bivand]

Hi Andreas,

I have added:

/*
This code is described in "Computational Geometry in C" (Second Edition),
Chapter 8.  It is not written to be comprehensible without the
explanation in that book.

Prints out one arm configuration to reach given target.
Assumes number of links >= 3.
Input:
    nlinks           Number of links
    L1 L2 ... Ln     Link lengths
    x0 y0            target0
    x1 x2            target1
    ...

Written by Joseph O'Rourke.
Last modified: December 1997
Questions to orourke at cs.smith.edu.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
This code is Copyright 1998 by Joseph O'Rourke.  It may be freely
redistributed in its entirety provided that this copyright notice is
not removed.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
*/

to spdep/src/soigraph.c (committed to R-forge, will be released when the 
next release occurs). This is the comment at the top of arm.c from:

http://cs.smith.edu/~orourke/CGCode/SecondEdition/Ccode2.tar.gz

which is the author's code distribution site, and is more relevant than 
the printed text of the book. We've used the same approach in sp/src/pip.c 
for over ten years without attracting Debian's ire.

Nicholas and I understood in 2001 that ... may be freely redistributed ... 
could reasonably be taken as permission to include and redistribute these 
small functions.

Do you want me to revisit the separate packaging of data sets?

Best wishes,

Roger

On Mon, 4 Apr 2016, Andreas Tille wrote:

> Hi Roger,
>
> I hope you remember the discussion we had two years ago when I tried to
> package spdep for Debian as a dependency to test some R epipdemiology
> tools.  I somehow gave up since the packages can be run with out spdep.
> However, we have now some bioinformatics tools that have a strong
> dependency and so we need to dive into this again.
>
> As you can read below the Debian ftpmaster has reviewed the source code
> of spdep and found a weak part in the licensing.  If you ask me this
> issue is also relevant for distributing spdep code on CRAN but nobody
> has stumbled upon this before.  It would be great if you could clarify
> the license of these pieces of code or replace it by some alternative
> free code.
>
> Kind regards and thanks for your support
>
>      Andreas.
>
> On Sun, Apr 03, 2016 at 04:49:37PM +0000, Thorsten Alteholz wrote:
>> Hi Andreas,
>>
>> the issues about src/soigraph.c are not really solved.
>>
>> According to the file:
>> * The subroutines TwoCirclesxx and SubVec are adapted for R and Double
>> * precision coordinates by Nicholas Lewin-Koh, from Computational
>> * Geometry in C, Joseph O'Rourke, Cambridge University Press
>> * (1998), specifically from arm/arm.c. Copyright for those subroutines
>> *  remains his.
>>
>> As you can see, for example on Amazon, this book contains a paragraph:
>>
>> This book is in copyright. (...) no reproduction of any part may take
>> place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
>>
>> From my point of view this does not look like that "This code may be
>> freely redistributed" ...
>>
>>   Thorsten
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> debian-science-maintainers mailing list
>> debian-science-maintainers at lists.alioth.debian.org
>> http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/debian-science-maintainers
>>
>
>

-- 
Roger Bivand
Department of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics,
Helleveien 30, N-5045 Bergen, Norway.
voice: +47 55 95 93 55; fax +47 55 95 91 00
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