## Summary R Packages use the file `LICENSE` for other things than the text of the license, and GitLab doesn't provide a way to link the License button on the project page to a different file if `LICENSE` exists in the top directory of a project. ## Details The coding standards for the R Project and CRAN are [very clear](https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-release/R-exts.html#Licensing) that the file `LICENSE` in the top-level directory of the package **must not** contain the text of the license for the package. For instance, if my package is licensed under the MIT license, then the file `DESCRIPTION` contains the line `License: MIT + file LICENSE` and the file `LICENSE` contains only the two lines: YEAR: <year> COPYRIGHT HOLDER: <name> I can have a file called `LICENSE.txt` or `LICENSE.md` that has the full text of the license. However, if a project has a file called `LICENSE` in the top directory, GitLab automatically links the License button on main project page to `LICENSE`. There does not seem to be any way to override this behavior and tell GitLab to link the License button to another file instead, such as `LICENSE.md` or `LICENSE.txt`. R package developers need to be able to get GitLab to link another file (such as `LICENSE.md` or `LICENSE.txt`) to the License button on the main project page when there is a `LICENSE` file in the same directory. ## Possible Fixes In the function `license` in `app/models/repository.rb` allow the user to override the variable `preferences` (either globally or on a per-project basis).