use tools::analyze_license()

[wlandau]

analyze_license() will be exported from tools in R 4.5.0: HenrikBengtsson/Wishlist-for-R#170 (comment). It should simplify license checking in assert_package_description() and avoid this extra call to available.packages() in meta_packages().

[wlandau]

and avoid this extra call to available.packages() in meta_packages().

There, analyze_license() would actually cause extra overhead. So maybe we should only use it in assert_package_description().

> system.time(out <- available.packages())
   user  system elapsed 
  0.174   0.005   0.181 
> system.time(replicate(nrow(out), tools::analyze_license("MIT")))
   user  system elapsed 
 15.626   0.188  15.827 

[eitsupi]

@wlandau It appears that this decision may not have been correct. Many packages are failing in the status check.

R-multiverse found issues with package polars version 0.22.4 remote hash 2b5b485fb178e47934c8041f03d4382f79a205f6 (last published at 2025-05-14 01:14:21.637 UTC).

Package polars declares license 'MIT + file LICENSE' in its DESCRIPTION file. R-multiverse cannot verify that this license is a [valid free and open-source license](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software). Each package contributed to R-multiverse must have a valid open-source license to protect the intellectual property rights of the package owners.


Subscribe to https://r-multiverse.org/status/staging/polars.xml for automatic notifications about changes to the status of package polars.

[wlandau]

tools::analyze_license("MIT + file LICENSE") looks fine, but it seems utils::available.packages(repos = "https://community.r-multiverse.org", filters = "license/FOSS") returns an empty data frame in R version 4.5.0. I will take a look this afternoon.

[wlandau]

Now fixed, and polars is safely in Production. Added a follow-up at r-universe-org/help#606.

[eitsupi]

r-multiverse/status@172f191 seems fixing this, thanks!