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Third-party model licenses

ToolsRTM is an R port of several radiative transfer models published by the remote-sensing research community, integrated behind one common interface. The models it bundles are not all under the same license, so ToolsRTM as a whole is distributed under GPL-3.0 (License: GPL-3 in DESCRIPTION): three of the bundled models (getFluspect.B/getFluspect.Cx, foursail2, SPART) are ports of GPL-3.0-licensed original models, and GPL-3.0 requires any combined work incorporating GPL-3.0 code to be distributed as GPL-3.0 as a whole – this matches the Python port toolsrtm’s own license.

Individually, some of ToolsRTM’s functions (e.g. PROSPECT-D/-PRO) are themselves original/independent implementations that would be MIT-licensable on their own; that does not change the GPL-3.0 status of the combined ToolsRTM distribution as a whole, per GPL-3.0’s terms.

If a row below says “not independently verified”: ToolsRTM has not confirmed which upstream source (if any) its specific implementation was derived from. Treat those models as used under academic/research terms pending verification.

Model R function(s) Original developers Reference DOI Source-code provenance License
PROSPECT-D prospect_PRO (leaf.model=“PROSPECT-D”) Féret, Gitelson, Noble, Jacquemoud Féret et al. (2017), Remote Sens. Environ. 193, 204-215 10.1016/j.rse.2017.03.004 Original authors’ own reference R package (jbferet/prospect, GitLab) is MIT-licensed MIT (as implemented; the combined ToolsRTM package is GPL-3.0, see above)
PROSPECT-PRO prospect_PRO Féret et al. Féret et al. (2021), Remote Sens. Environ. 252, 112173 10.1016/j.rse.2020.112173 Same jbferet/prospect package (MIT) MIT (as implemented; combined package is GPL-3.0)
LIBERTY liberty Dawson, Curran, Plummer Dawson et al. (1998), Remote Sens. Environ. 65(1), 50-60 10.1016/S0034-4257(98)00007-8 No public original-author reference implementation located Not independently verified
Fluspect-B getFluspect.B Vilfan, van der Tol, Muller, Rascher, Verhoef Vilfan et al. (2016), Remote Sens. Environ. 186, 596-615 10.1016/j.rse.2016.09.017 Ships as a bundled submodel inside Christiaanvandertol/SCOPE (GPL-3.0) GPL-3.0
Fluspect-B-Cx getFluspect.Cx Vilfan, van der Tol, Yang, Wyber, Malenovský, Robinson, Verhoef Vilfan et al. (2018), Remote Sens. Environ. 211, 345-356 10.1016/j.rse.2018.04.012 Same as Fluspect-B – bundled inside SCOPE’s GPL-3.0 codebase Not independently verified (treat as GPL-3.0-adjacent)
fourSAIL foursail Verhoef Verhoef (1984), Remote Sens. Environ. 16(2), 125-141; Verhoef (1998), PhD thesis, Wageningen University 10.1016/0034-4257(84)90057-9 No confirmed source for this port. Note: the most prominent modern reference implementation, jbferet/prosail (R, bundles 4SAIL), is GPL-3 + file LICENSE Not independently verified
fourSAIL2 foursail2 Verhoef & Bach Verhoef & Bach (2007), Remote Sens. Environ. 109, 166-182 10.1016/j.rse.2006.12.013 Ships as a bundled submodel inside Christiaanvandertol/SCOPE (GPL-3.0) GPL-3.0
INFORM inform, foursail.inform, foursail.inf Atzberger Atzberger (2000), 20th EARSeL Symposium, Dresden, 39-44 No DOI (conference proceedings) No public original-author reference implementation located Not independently verified
MARMIT / MARMIT-2 get.marmit1, get.marmit2, get.marmit.rsoil Bablet, Dupiau, Jacquemoud, Briottet et al. Bablet et al. (2018), Remote Sens. Environ. 217, 1-17; Dupiau et al. (2022), Remote Sens. Environ. 272, 112951 10.1016/j.rse.2018.07.031; 10.1016/j.rse.2022.112951 Original authors’ own reference implementation (Python): marmit/marmit, maintained by Alice Dupiau (), Stéphane Jacquemoud () and Xavier Briottet () Used with the original authors’ permission (not a formal OSI license)
SPART SPART, SPART.simN Yang, van der Tol, Yin, Verhoef Yang et al. (2020), Remote Sens. Environ. 247, 111870 10.1016/j.rse.2020.111870 Original authors’ own repository, peiqiyang/SPART (GitHub), is GPL-3.0-licensed GPL-3.0

MARMIT note: only Bablet_2016 ships with this package (keeps install size small). All 8 official MARMIT databases are available directly from the monorepo’s own databases/ folder (repo root, one level up from ToolsRTM/) – pass db_root to get.marmit.rsoil(), see ?get.marmit.rsoil.

Full write-up of the package: README.md. Root-repo license overview: ../THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md.

Questions

If you plan to redistribute or commercially use this package, note it is GPL-3.0 as a whole (see above) and, for any specific model row marked “not independently verified”, verify that model’s license terms directly with its original authors first.