Bioconductor package licenses

Published

February 12, 2026

Get Bioc package list

suppressPackageStartupMessages({
    library(BiocPkgTools)
    library(dplyr)
    library(DT)
})

BiocManager::version()
[1] '3.23'
pkg <- biocPkgList(repo = "BioCsoft")
'getOption("repos")' replaces Bioconductor standard repositories, see 'help("repositories", package = "BiocManager")'
for details.
Replacement repositories:
    CRAN: https://cloud.r-project.org
adding rname 'https://bioconductor.org/packages/3.23/bioc/VIEWS'
# pkg <- biocPkgList(repo = c("BioCsoft", "BioCann", "BioCexp", "BioCworkflows"))

Get licenses

sort(table(pkg$License, useNA = "ifany"))

                                           AGPL (>= 3)                                  AGPL-3 | file LICENSE 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                Apache License (== 2.0) + file LICENSE                 Apache License (== 2.0) | file LICENSE 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                               Apache License (>= 2.0)                      Apache License 2.0 | file LICENSE 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                                          Artistic 2.0                    Artistic-2.0 | GPL-2 + file LICENSE 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                                          BSD_3_clause                            CC BY-SA 4.0 + file LICENSE 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                                                   CPL Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                                          EPL (>= 1.0)                   GNU General Public License version 3 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                                             GPL (==2)                                           GPL (>= 2.1) 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                                            GPL (>=2 )                                                  GPL 3 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                                         GPL version 3                                GPL-2 | GPL-3 | BSL-1.0 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                                  GPL-3 + file LICENCE                                 GPL-3 bioconductor.org 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                                             GPL(>= 2)                                               GPL(>=3) 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                          LGPL (>= 2.1) | file LICENSE                                          LGPL (>= 3.0) 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                             LGPL (>= 3); File LICENSE                                               LGPL-2.1 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                                    MIT | file LICENSE                                            MIT License 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                            Mozilla Public License 2.0                                              Unlimited 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                                                  <NA>                                Apache License (== 2.0) 
                                                     1                                                      2 
                                          Artistic-1.0                            Artistic-2.0 + file LICENSE 
                                                     2                                                      2 
                   BSD 3-clause License + file LICENSE                                              CC BY 4.0 
                                                     2                                                      2 
                                       CC BY-NC-ND 4.0                         CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 + file LICENSE 
                                                     2                                                      2 
                                                   CC0                                  CeCILL | file LICENSE 
                                                     2                                                      2 
                                                   EPL                                           GPL (>= 3.0) 
                                                     2                                                      2 
                                           GPL (>=2.0)                                            GPL (>=3.0) 
                                                     2                                                      2 
                                              GPL (>2)             GPL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html) 
                                                     2                                                      2 
                                         GPL version 2                                 GPL Version 2 or later 
                                                     2                                                      2 
                                         LGPL (>= 2.1)                                             LGPL (>=3) 
                                                     2                                                      2 
                               LGPL-2.1 | file LICENSE                                  LGPL-3 + file LICENSE 
                                                     2                                                      2 
                                 AGPL-3 + file LICENSE                                                 CeCILL 
                                                     3                                                      3 
                                          GPL (>= 2.0)                              GPL (>= 2) + file LICENSE 
                                                     3                                                      3 
                              GPL (>=3) + file LICENSE                                   Artistic License 2.0 
                                                     3                                                      4 
                                  GPL-2 + file LICENSE                                   GPL-2 | file LICENSE 
                                                     4                                                      4 
                                            LGPL (>=2)                                     MIT + file LICENCE 
                                                     4                                                      4 
                                         AGPL-3.0-only                                  Apache License (>= 2) 
                                                     5                                                      5 
                                    Apache License 2.0                              GPL (>= 3) + file LICENSE 
                                                     5                                                      5 
                                         GPL-2 | GPL-3                                               GPL(>=2) 
                                                     5                                                      5 
                                                LGPL-2                                                    MIT 
                                                     5                                                      6 
                           BSD_2_clause + file LICENSE                                          LGPL (>= 2.0) 
                                                     8                                                      8 
                                           LGPL (>= 3)                                              GPL (>=3) 
                                                     8                                                      9 
                           Artistic-2.0 | file LICENSE                                   GPL-3 | file LICENSE 
                                                    13                                                     14 
                           BSD_3_clause + file LICENSE                                                 AGPL-3 
                                                    16                                                     17 
                                           LGPL (>= 2)                                                    GPL 
                                                    18                                                     21 
                                                LGPL-3                                           file LICENSE 
                                                    36                                                     39 
                                                  LGPL                                              GPL (>=2) 
                                                    39                                                     47 
                                  GPL-3 + file LICENSE                                             GPL (>= 3) 
                                                    62                                                     72 
                                            GPL (>= 2)                                                  GPL-2 
                                                   177                                                    233 
                                    MIT + file LICENSE                                                  GPL-3 
                                                   353                                                    489 
                                          Artistic-2.0 
                                                   521 

Clean up

## Get unique licenses
lic <- unique(pkg$License)
lic <- lic[!is.na(lic)]
alres <- lapply(structure(lic, names = lic), tools:::analyze_license)

## Get information about the licenses
alres <- do.call(dplyr::bind_rows, lapply(names(alres), function(nm) {
    a <- alres[[nm]]
    data.frame(License = nm,
               LicenseStandardizable = a$is_standardizable,
               LicenseVerified = a$is_verified,
               LicenseStandardization = a$standardization,
               LicenseCanonical = a$is_canonical,
               LicenseFOSS = a$is_FOSS,
               LicenseRestrictsUse = a$restricts_use)
}))

## Add additional column removing the "+/| file LICENSE" part (if we want to 
## assume that this is compatible with the main license indication)
alres$LicenseStandardizationShort <- gsub("[ ]*\\+*\\|*[ ]*file LICEN[SC]E",
                                          "", alres$LicenseStandardization)

dim(alres)
[1] 92  8
length(unique(alres$LicenseStandardizationShort))
[1] 50
DT::datatable(alres,
              extensions = "FixedColumns",
              rownames = FALSE,
              options = list(scrollX = TRUE, 
                             fixedColumns = list(leftColumns = 1),
                             search = list(regex = FALSE, caseInsensitive = TRUE),
                             pageLength = 20))
## Add license columns to pkg list
pkg <- pkg %>% 
    dplyr::select(Package, Maintainer, License, hasLICENSE) %>%
    dplyr::left_join(alres, by = "License")
dim(pkg)
[1] 2351   11
DT::datatable(pkg,
              extensions = "FixedColumns",
              rownames = FALSE,
              options = list(scrollX = TRUE, 
                             fixedColumns = list(leftColumns = 1),
                             search = list(regex = FALSE, caseInsensitive = TRUE),
                             pageLength = 20))

Tabulate licenses

sort(table(pkg$LicenseStandardizationShort, useNA = "ifany"))

                                           AGPL (>= 3)                                Apache License (>= 2.0) 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                                  Artistic-2.0 | GPL-2                                           CC BY-SA 4.0 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                                                   CPL Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                                          EPL (>= 1.0)                   GNU General Public License version 3 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                                            GPL (== 2)                                           GPL (>= 2.1) 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                               GPL-2 | GPL-3 | BSL-1.0                                          LGPL (>= 3.0) 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                                           MIT License                             Mozilla Public License 2.0 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                                             Unlimited                                           Artistic-1.0 
                                                     1                                                      2 
                                  BSD 3-clause License                                              CC BY 4.0 
                                                     2                                                      2 
                                                   CC0                                                    EPL 
                                                     2                                                      2 
                                             GPL (> 2)                                          LGPL (>= 2.1) 
                                                     2                                                      3 
                                              LGPL-2.1                                Apache License (== 2.0) 
                                                     3                                                      4 
                                  Artistic License 2.0                                        CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 
                                                     4                                                      4 
                                          GPL (>= 3.0)                                  Apache License (>= 2) 
                                                     4                                                      5 
                                                CeCILL                                           GPL (>= 2.0) 
                                                     5                                                      5 
                                         GPL-2 | GPL-3                                                 LGPL-2 
                                                     5                                                      5 
                                    Apache License 2.0                                           BSD_2_clause 
                                                     6                                                      8 
                                         LGPL (>= 2.0)                                            LGPL (>= 3) 
                                                     8                                                     10 
                                                  <NA>                                           BSD_3_clause 
                                                    10                                                     17 
                                                AGPL-3                                                    GPL 
                                                    21                                                     21 
                                           LGPL (>= 2)                                                 LGPL-3 
                                                    22                                                     38 
                                                                                                         LGPL 
                                                    39                                                     39 
                                            GPL (>= 3)                                             GPL (>= 2) 
                                                    90                                                    236 
                                                 GPL-2                                                    MIT 
                                                   243                                                    364 
                                          Artistic-2.0                                                  GPL-3 
                                                   537                                                    568 

Some cases that may need attention

We attempt to estimate the fraction of packages that are provided under an OSI approved license. It should be noted that, automatically performed, this will necessary be a rough estimate, e.g. since there are several packages that do not mention the license explicitly in the DESCRIPTION file but only provide the license text in a separate LICENSE file.

totalNbrPkg <- nrow(pkg)
ccLicensed <- pkg$Package[grep("CC|Creative Commons", pkg$LicenseStandardizationShort)]
fileLicense <- pkg$Package[which(pkg$LicenseStandardizationShort == "")]
licUnlimited <- pkg$Package[which(pkg$LicenseStandardizationShort == "Unlimited")]
licNotStandardizable <- pkg$Package[is.na(pkg$LicenseStandardizationShort)]

fractionOSIApproved <- 1 - length(unique(c(ccLicensed, fileLicense, 
                                           licUnlimited, licNotStandardizable)))/totalNbrPkg
print(paste0("Rough estimate of fraction packages with OSI approved license: ", 
             signif(100 * fractionOSIApproved, digits = 4), "%"))
[1] "Rough estimate of fraction packages with OSI approved license: 97.45%"

Creative Commons licenses

Creative Commons recommends not using their licenses for software (but may be suitable for data packages): https://creativecommons.org/faq/#can-i-apply-a-creative-commons-license-to-software. Note though that the CC licenses are among the ‘standard’ open source licenses listed in the R license database: https://svn.r-project.org/R/trunk/share/licenses/license.db.

DT::datatable(subset(pkg, grepl("CC|Creative Commons", LicenseStandardizationShort)),
              extensions = "FixedColumns",
              rownames = FALSE,
              options = list(scrollX = TRUE, 
                             fixedColumns = list(leftColumns = 1),
                             search = list(regex = FALSE, caseInsensitive = TRUE),
                             pageLength = 20))

Packages that have just a ‘file LICENSE’

These need to be checked manually.

.makeLinkToLicense <- function(pkg, text) {
    sprintf('<a href="%s" target="_blank"> %s</a>',
            paste0("https://bioconductor.org/packages/devel/bioc/licenses/", 
                   pkg, "/LICENSE"), 
            text)
}
DT::datatable(subset(pkg, LicenseStandardizationShort == "") %>% 
                  dplyr::mutate(License = vapply(seq_along(License), function(i) {
                      .makeLinkToLicense(Package[i], License[i])
                  }, "NA")),
              extensions = "FixedColumns",
              rownames = FALSE,
              escape = FALSE,
              options = list(scrollX = TRUE, 
                             fixedColumns = list(leftColumns = 1),
                             search = list(regex = FALSE, caseInsensitive = TRUE),
                             pageLength = 20))

Packages that have license “Unlimited”

DT::datatable(subset(pkg, LicenseStandardizationShort == "Unlimited"),
              extensions = "FixedColumns",
              rownames = FALSE,
              options = list(scrollX = TRUE, 
                             fixedColumns = list(leftColumns = 1),
                             search = list(regex = FALSE, caseInsensitive = TRUE),
                             pageLength = 20))

Packages that have licenses that can not be standardized

Some of these may be false positives.

DT::datatable(subset(pkg, is.na(LicenseStandardizationShort)),
              extensions = "FixedColumns",
              rownames = FALSE,
              options = list(scrollX = TRUE, 
                             fixedColumns = list(leftColumns = 1),
                             search = list(regex = FALSE, caseInsensitive = TRUE),
                             pageLength = 20))

The rest of the licenses appear to be approved open source licenses (https://opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical).

Session info

sessionInfo()
R Under development (unstable) (2026-02-08 r89382)
Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
Running under: Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS

Matrix products: default
BLAS:   /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/openblas-pthread/libblas.so.3 
LAPACK: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/openblas-pthread/libopenblasp-r0.3.26.so;  LAPACK version 3.12.0

locale:
 [1] LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8       LC_NUMERIC=C               LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8        LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8    
 [5] LC_MONETARY=en_US.UTF-8    LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8    LC_PAPER=en_US.UTF-8       LC_NAME=C                 
 [9] LC_ADDRESS=C               LC_TELEPHONE=C             LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C       

time zone: Etc/UTC
tzcode source: system (glibc)

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     

other attached packages:
[1] DT_0.34.0           dplyr_1.2.0         BiocPkgTools_1.29.2 htmlwidgets_1.6.4  

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
 [1] xfun_0.56           bslib_0.10.0        httr2_1.2.2         gh_1.5.0            Biobase_2.71.0     
 [6] tzdb_0.5.0          vctrs_0.7.1         tools_4.6.0         crosstalk_1.2.2     bitops_1.0-9       
[11] generics_0.1.4      stats4_4.6.0        curl_7.0.0          RUnit_0.4.33.1      tibble_3.3.1       
[16] RSQLite_2.4.6       blob_1.3.0          pkgconfig_2.0.3     dbplyr_2.5.1        graph_1.89.1       
[21] lifecycle_1.0.5     compiler_4.6.0      stringr_1.6.0       biocViews_1.79.1    htmltools_0.5.9    
[26] sass_0.4.10         RCurl_1.98-1.17     yaml_2.3.12         jquerylib_0.1.4     pillar_1.11.1      
[31] tidyr_1.3.2         cachem_1.1.0        tidyselect_1.2.1    rvest_1.0.5         digest_0.6.39      
[36] stringi_1.8.7       purrr_1.2.1         fastmap_1.2.0       cli_3.6.5           magrittr_2.0.4     
[41] RBGL_1.87.0         XML_3.99-0.22       readr_2.1.6         withr_3.0.2         filelock_1.0.3     
[46] rappdirs_0.3.4      bit64_4.6.0-1       lubridate_1.9.5     timechange_0.4.0    rmarkdown_2.30     
[51] httr_1.4.7          igraph_2.2.1        bit_4.6.0           otel_0.2.0          hms_1.1.4          
[56] memoise_2.0.1       evaluate_1.0.5      knitr_1.51          BiocFileCache_3.1.0 rlang_1.1.7        
[61] glue_1.8.0          DBI_1.2.3           BiocManager_1.30.27 xml2_1.5.2          BiocGenerics_0.57.0
[66] jsonlite_2.0.0      R6_2.6.1