GPL is holding R back
Over the course of the 4 years and then some years I’ve worked at Esri, I have been championing the support and integration of R here. I’d like to think I’ve had some success doing so. However, one thing keeps coming up—the GPL license.
R & ArcGIS Pro
Our package {arcgisbinding} links to ArcGIS Pro. This alone was a feat
that took hours of legal consultation, individual championing, and
outreach to the R community. This all predates my time at Esri (and was
actually released when I was an undergraduate!).
Due to the GPL we cannot ship R or arcgisbinding in ArcGIS Pro—and then a litany of internal reasonings too that are entirely unrelated!
Many tools in ArcGIS Pro were inspired by and verified against open source R packages. But much of the use of R ends there.
The Real Cost
I want to make the (fairly uncontroversial, I think) point that
GPL is holding R back.
I am working to push through a new top secret 🕵️♂️product idea (note: idea not product, even) that would enhance the way we support R.
This week alone, I count at least 11 people who have had to dedicate multiple hours discussing, documenting, outlining, arguing about if and how we can use R due to the GPL license.
This has cost the business thousands (maybe even a ten thousand or more) of dollars.
In no way is this a “oh, no! poor company!”
Who Actually Loses
What this means, is that supporting the scientists at NOAA, EPA, USDA, the Forest Service, our homie Eli Pousson at the City of Baltimore, the analysts of the Penobscot, Muscogee, Cherokee, Skokomish, and other nations of the tribal exchange network (shouts out Angie Reed, btw), and the DoT, and, and, and… all of those who love and rely on R, gets stopped before it starts!
But I’m pig-headed 🐷 and love the R community and I want to see R be more available to spatial analysts everywhere. But in order to support R, I have to fight R itself.
The Path Forward
If this was an MIT, or BSD-3, or Apache-2, or other more permissive licenses, this wouldn’t be as much of a problem.
While I know there are people out there who will say “skill issue,” I’d like to recognize that it’s not that simple. Business have concerns that, for better or worse, are legitimate.
There’s a balance to be struck that emphasizes the importance of the software protected by the GPL license but also enables businesses to use the software without having to give up their secret sauce 🍔.
I don’t think the GPL is it.