Bioconductor package licenses

Published

January 16, 2025

Get Bioc package list

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

BiocManager::version()
[1] '3.21'
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
# pkg <- biocPkgList(repo = c("BioCsoft", "BioCann", "BioCexp", "BioCworkflows"))

Get licenses

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

                                 AGPL-3 | file LICENSE                 Apache License (== 2.0) + file LICENSE 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                Apache License (== 2.0) | file LICENSE                                Apache License (>= 2.0) 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                Apache License (>= 2.0) | file LICENSE                      Apache License 2.0 | file LICENSE 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                                          Artistic 2.0                    Artistic-2.0 | GPL-2 + file LICENSE 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                   BSD 3-clause License + file LICENSE                                           BSD_2_clause 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                                          BSD_3_clause                            CC BY-SA 4.0 + file LICENSE 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                                                   CC0                                  CeCILL | 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-3 + file LICENCE 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                                GPL-3 bioconductor.org                                              GPL(>= 2) 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                                              GPL(>=3)                           LGPL (>= 2.1) | file LICENSE 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                                         LGPL (>= 3.0)                              LGPL (>= 3); File LICENSE 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                                              LGPL-2.1                                  LGPL-3 + file LICENSE 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                                    MIT | file LICENSE                                            MIT License 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                                     MIT+ file LICENSE                             Mozilla Public License 2.0 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                                             Unlimited                                Apache License (== 2.0) 
                                                     1                                                      2 
                                          Artistic-1.0                                              CC BY 4.0 
                                                     2                                                      2 
                                       CC BY-NC-ND 4.0                         CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 + 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                                  AGPL-3 + file LICENSE 
                                                     2                                                      3 
                                  Artistic License 2.0                            Artistic-2.0 + file LICENSE 
                                                     3                                                      3 
                                                CeCILL                                           GPL (>= 2.0) 
                                                     3                                                      3 
                             GPL (>= 2) + file LICENSE                              GPL (>= 3) + file LICENSE 
                                                     3                                                      3 
                              GPL (>=3) + file LICENSE                                  Apache License (>= 2) 
                                                     3                                                      4 
                                  GPL-2 | file LICENSE                                             LGPL (>=2) 
                                                     4                                                      4 
                                    MIT + file LICENCE                                          AGPL-3.0-only 
                                                     4                                                      5 
                                    Apache License 2.0                                   GPL-2 + file LICENSE 
                                                     5                                                      5 
                                         GPL-2 | GPL-3                                                 LGPL-2 
                                                     5                                                      5 
                                              GPL(>=2)                                                    MIT 
                                                     6                                                      7 
                           BSD_2_clause + file LICENSE                                          LGPL (>= 2.0) 
                                                     8                                                      8 
                                           LGPL (>= 3)                                              GPL (>=3) 
                                                     9                                                     10 
                           Artistic-2.0 | file LICENSE                                   GPL-3 | file LICENSE 
                                                    12                                                     14 
                           BSD_3_clause + file LICENSE                                                 AGPL-3 
                                                    15                                                     19 
                                           LGPL (>= 2)                                                    GPL 
                                                    19                                                     22 
                                                LGPL-3                                           file LICENSE 
                                                    36                                                     37 
                                                  LGPL                                              GPL (>=2) 
                                                    39                                                     47 
                                  GPL-3 + file LICENSE                                             GPL (>= 3) 
                                                    59                                                     62 
                                            GPL (>= 2)                                                  GPL-2 
                                                   183                                                    235 
                                    MIT + file LICENSE                                                  GPL-3 
                                                   309                                                    480 
                                          Artistic-2.0 
                                                   511 

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] 93  8
length(unique(alres$LicenseStandardizationShort))
[1] 48
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] 2281   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"))

                                  Artistic-2.0 | GPL-2                                   BSD 3-clause License 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                                          CC BY-SA 4.0                                                    CC0 
                                                     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 
                                         LGPL (>= 3.0)                                            MIT License 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                            Mozilla Public License 2.0                                              Unlimited 
                                                     1                                                      1 
                               Apache License (>= 2.0)                                           Artistic-1.0 
                                                     2                                                      2 
                                             CC BY 4.0                                                    EPL 
                                                     2                                                      2 
                                             GPL (> 2)                                   Artistic License 2.0 
                                                     2                                                      3 
                                         LGPL (>= 2.1)                                               LGPL-2.1 
                                                     3                                                      3 
                               Apache License (== 2.0)                                  Apache License (>= 2) 
                                                     4                                                      4 
                                       CC BY-NC-ND 4.0                                                 CeCILL 
                                                     4                                                      4 
                                          GPL (>= 3.0)                                           GPL (>= 2.0) 
                                                     4                                                      5 
                                         GPL-2 | GPL-3                                                 LGPL-2 
                                                     5                                                      5 
                                    Apache License 2.0                                          LGPL (>= 2.0) 
                                                     6                                                      8 
                                          BSD_2_clause                                                   <NA> 
                                                     9                                                      9 
                                           LGPL (>= 3)                                           BSD_3_clause 
                                                    11                                                     16 
                                                   GPL                                                 AGPL-3 
                                                    22                                                     23 
                                           LGPL (>= 2)                                                        
                                                    23                                                     37 
                                                LGPL-3                                                   LGPL 
                                                    37                                                     39 
                                            GPL (>= 3)                                             GPL (>= 2) 
                                                    79                                                    243 
                                                 GPL-2                                                    MIT 
                                                   246                                                    322 
                                          Artistic-2.0                                                  GPL-3 
                                                   527                                                    556 

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: 97.54%"

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) (2025-01-08 r87545)
Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
Running under: Ubuntu 24.04.1 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_0.33             dplyr_1.1.4         BiocPkgTools_1.25.2 htmlwidgets_1.6.4  

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
 [1] xfun_0.50            bslib_0.8.0          gh_1.4.1             Biobase_2.67.0       tzdb_0.4.0          
 [6] vctrs_0.6.5          tools_4.5.0          crosstalk_1.2.1      bitops_1.0-9         generics_0.1.3      
[11] stats4_4.5.0         curl_6.1.0           RUnit_0.4.33         tibble_3.2.1         RSQLite_2.3.9       
[16] blob_1.2.4           pkgconfig_2.0.3      dbplyr_2.5.0         graph_1.85.1         lifecycle_1.0.4     
[21] compiler_4.5.0       stringr_1.5.1        biocViews_1.75.0     sass_0.4.9           htmltools_0.5.8.1   
[26] RCurl_1.98-1.16      yaml_2.3.10          jquerylib_0.1.4      pillar_1.10.1        whisker_0.4.1       
[31] cachem_1.1.0         tidyselect_1.2.1     rvest_1.0.4          digest_0.6.37        stringi_1.8.4       
[36] fastmap_1.2.0        cli_3.6.3            magrittr_2.0.3       RBGL_1.83.0          XML_3.99-0.18       
[41] crul_1.5.0           withr_3.0.2          readr_2.1.5          filelock_1.0.3       bit64_4.5.2         
[46] rmarkdown_2.29       httr_1.4.7           igraph_2.1.3         bit_4.5.0.1          hms_1.1.3           
[51] memoise_2.0.1        evaluate_1.0.1       knitr_1.49           BiocFileCache_2.15.0 rlang_1.1.4         
[56] glue_1.8.0           DBI_1.2.3            httpcode_0.3.0       BiocManager_1.30.25  xml2_1.3.6          
[61] fauxpas_0.5.2        BiocGenerics_0.53.3  rorcid_0.7.0         jsonlite_1.8.9       R6_2.5.1