copyright of R's packages - r

Question

I have a personal business and I want to get a Doctoral degree at a University, in the near future.
I want to know licence about R packages and their copyrights (intellectual property restrictions).
For example, one Professor makes R's packages and I want to use it to make my conduct research for my dissertation. and for business.
Would you tell me license that about the copyrights of R's packages? I can use that packages under free and unlimited?
I have been seeking about this problem but I cannot find answer.
My english is not good but I want to know about this problem,
And you can understand my simple question I think, beside my low english skill...
Could you tell me about R's packages copyright and thats reason?

Answer 1

There are 3 related, but different, concepts in your question:
Usage - free and unlimited vs paid or limited
Copyright - do they allow you to use their code and/or limit reproduction? A similar concept is License which is much more common and relevant that copyright in the context of R libraries.
Citation - should you cite the package in your paper and how to cite it
The vast majority of R packages (a.k.a. "libraries") offer free and unlimited usage. A small minority of libraries are wrappers of "freemium" or paid services, which I will mention later below.
It is more of a matter of proper citation than copyright. You should cite your libraries in your dissertation or thesis paper and other published work.
Citing packages is quite common. You can find a variety of resources on the Internet and you can look at published papers as good examples (via Google Scholar, your library, etc).
Often times the packages' documentation tells you how they'd like you to cite their library, which you can view in a viewer or on the command like (e.g. citation(package = "milleR").
For example:
citation(package = "caret")
To cite package ‘caret’ in publications use:
Max Kuhn. Contributions from Jed Wing, Steve Weston, Andre Williams, Chris Keefer, Allan Engelhardt, Tony Cooper, Zachary Mayer, Brenton Kenkel,
the R Core Team, Michael Benesty, Reynald Lescarbeau, Andrew Ziem, Luca Scrucca, Yuan Tang, Can Candan and Tyler Hunt. (2018). caret:
Classification and Regression Training. R package version 6.0-79. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=caret
A BibTeX entry for LaTeX users is
#Manual{,
title = {caret: Classification and Regression Training},
author = {Max Kuhn. Contributions from Jed Wing and Steve Weston and Andre Williams and Chris Keefer and Allan Engelhardt and Tony Cooper and Zachary Mayer and Brenton Kenkel and the R Core Team and Michael Benesty and Reynald Lescarbeau and Andrew Ziem and Luca Scrucca and Yuan Tang and Can Candan and Tyler Hunt.},
year = {2018},
note = {R package version 6.0-79},
url = {https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=caret},
}
ATTENTION: This citation information has been auto-generated from the package DESCRIPTION file and may need manual editing, see ‘help("citation")’.
While it might technically possible to copyright libraries, R is an "open" community in that the language is not only open source, but the vast majority of libraries and tools fall under some sort of open philosophy license like Apache, GNU, MIT, etc. The exceptions are rare and the companies behind any copyrighted packages with any special usage restrictions will probably make it quite clear.
I actually tried to find an example of a truly copyrighted R package. I was going to use one by Revolution Analytics, but from what I can see even theirs is just under Apache 2.0 license. An example from #jordan is one called highcharter which says:
The libraries are available under different licenses depending on
whether it is intended for commercial/government use, or for a
personal or non-profit project.
That would be a case where you'd have to have an appropriate license for the version of the software in question. Though even that package itself isn't technically copyrighted (they use licenses rather than copyrights to limit usage).
As a licensed user you could still probably use and cite the package, but that can be limited or eliminated by the specific license type/wording.
Further, note that just because something is copyrighted doesn't necessarily mean that you can't use it (within the prescribed scope of use) and cite it.
In summary, yes you can use 99.99% of R packages as you said - free and unlimited. The exceptions are extremely rare and even in those very rare cases you can usually still use and cite the libraries as long as you obey the license.
Packages that provide access to external API's, like Google Maps (gmaps) may sell access to their API's by volume. For instance, Google offers free API access for light usage, but for large numbers and frequent requests you must open a billing account.

Answer 2

This goes beyond just copyright or even citation requirements. In order to determine whether you can use the software for your purpose you need to get the license, read the restrictions, and determine whether you are willing to accept them.
For example, some open source projects are licensed with "copy-left" rules. A copyleft license requires that any derivative software MUST also be open source. This may or may not be a problem depending on your business model.
See: https://opensource.org/licenses
Additionally, you need to be aware of the rules that your University places on work you create related to your schooling. The contract at many schools states that any work you produce as part of your program is the property of the University. If you look up these rules in advance you may be able to negotiate with the University and get a written contract releasing you from the generic school policies. Some schools do not attempt to own your University project work.