perl is under "your choice" of the Artistic License and the GNU GPL. AS can choose to use the Artistic License, which does not require the result to be free -- all it requires is that it be within the artistic vision of the original author -- in this case, the original author is Larry, who sits on AS's board, and thus would probably have had loud words about it had it not been within his artistic vision. As to the other copyrightholders, if a nonfree result wasn't in their artistic vision, they should have said so. (That said, the artistic license may be so vauge as to be invalid as a binding contract.)

Also, the nonfree AS stuff seems to mostly be original work, not modifications to the core of perl.

That said, I don't much like AS -- they seem to be ignoring perl6, when it could be the greatest thing that ever happened to them.

Lots of people are ignoring Perl 6; at least the current codebase.

But without new interest in perl & other dynamic languges, AS will die. The dream of parrot would bring all of AS's languages together under one roof -- trpple your pleasure, tripple your fun, tripple your bang/development buck.

---

Warning: Unless otherwise stated, code is untested. Do not use without understanding. Code is posted in the hopes it is useful, but without warranty. All copyrights are relinquished into the public domain unless otherwise stated. I am not an angel. I am capable of error, and err on a fairly regular basis. If I made a mistake, please let me know (such as by replying to this node).

all it requires is that it be within the artistic vision of the original author

IMHO the artistic license should never have been written. Try a quick search in google and you'll come across many loopholes in it.

As far as I can tell the artistic licence is one of the reasons that perl has been so successful. Personally I think Larry was completely right in his decision not to follow the Free Software Foundation licensing model. His model allows corporations to use Perl in their products for free and to make money off it. This results in much more perl being used than it would if it had a more restrictive "open" licence. The wide spread use of perl is IMHO a consequence of its loose rules and open and inclusive licencing scheme. Also note that while many companies make considerable profits out of Perl, many of them pay money to the various charitable organizations that support our movement.

Frankly i think that Larrys model allows us to get the best of both worlds.

Also, I doubt that there is a licencing model that does not have flaws. The GPL had flaws that lead to the LGPL. The LGPL has flaws that means that some open source developers are ignoring its constraints to futher the development of interesting and useful tools. One that comes to mind is exporting GCC parse trees for analytical and debugging puposes (introspection of C/C++). Afaiui supporters of the GPL and LGPL do not allow for this on the grounds that it allows a way for external tools to use the products of GPL/LGPL software without explicitly linking to it. Thus it bypases the derivative works clause. However this restriction is antithetical to the spirit of the movement in that it hugely restrcits the ability to make third party tools to aid the GCC based developer. The result has been that a number of groups are now ignoring these limitations and building in support for this anyway.

Ultimately I think open source models should be rated by their effectiveness in providing open source software, and allowing that software to penetrate the market. So far I think the Artistic Licence succeeds quite well in both of these areas.

--- demerphq
my friends call me, usually because I'm late....

Good question. Presumably nothing, hell they may even be using perl internally in some of its products with us none the wiser. And dont forget that Microsoft paid GSAR and ActiveState a considerable amount of money (I heard 20 Mil) to improve Win32 Perl. Have you not noticed the

Support for concurrent interpreters and the fork() emulation was implemented by ActiveState, with funding from Microsoft Corporation.

in perlfork? (And no doubt there are more like it elsewhere).

Personally i wish AS all the luck they can get. They are an excellent company doing wonderful things with and for Perl. I wish people would stop bitching that they expect to earn a living while doing so. Especially as I and many others earn a living by using their software.

--- demerphq
my friends call me, usually because I'm late....

ActiveState's Perl productivity tools are available individually or as part of a single, value-priced bundle in ASPN Perl. Educational, volume and enterprise licenses are also available.

Say what? You mean I got to pay for this?

How can they do this legally?

It is one thing to charge for a Perl course, but these people are putting out software using Perl.

What's stopping corporations like Microsoft from doing the same thing? (Okay, I guess that wouldn't bode well for their own languages, but still.)

I know people pay for Perl programs all the time, but these aren't just programs. They're tools, and tools should be freely available to the community.

What would happen if CPAN became a fee subscription service?

I just don't understand this bickering. If you don't like what ActiveState does, don't buy/use their products. Write your own, and distribute them for free. Actions speak louder than words.

Abigail

A lot of people would complain - most likely the ones that never invested servers, diskspace or labour into CPAN would complain the loudests. Some silent person would start a new, free, CPAN.
...
If you don't like what ActiveState does, don't buy/use their products. Write your own, and distribute them for free. Actions speak louder than words.

Well said. In fact, so well said that I have nothing to add.

Guess I'll be going now :).

But the most important parts of ActiveState are free - ActivePerl, ActivePython, and ActiveTcl. Anything beyond that is fair game.

You say you want these tools to be free and freely available to the community because they're tools. Just because you got the wood and nails for free, doesn't mean you should walk into Home Depot and demand the hammer, saw, etc. be free too.

ActiveState isn't going to give those tools away any more than Home Depot is going to give you a three hundred dollar buzz saw for nothing. And as much as I dislike Microsoft, I support their right to charge for these products. Funny thing - you need the tools from Home Depot to make something from that wood, but you don't necessarily need the tools from ActiveState to build a perl program.

Simply put, if you dislike the thought of paying for such tools then quitcherbitchin and just build your own. Then you could make those freely available - and give ActiveState a run for their money.

Licensing
The ActivePerl Package is covered by the ActiveState Community License
+.

The source code used in the ActivePerl Package comprises of both Open 
+Source and proprietary software components.

All the Open Source components used in the ActivePerl Package are dist
+ributed by their original authors under the same licensing terms as P
+erl. The following is a full list of such components: 

Perl 

Bundled Perl modules: 
Archive-Tar 
Compress-Zlib 
Data-Dump 
Digest-HMAC 
Digest-MD2 
Digest-MD4 
Digest-SHA1 
File-CounterFile 
Font-AFM 
HTML-Parser 
HTML-Tagset 
HTML-Tree 
libwin32 
libwww-perl 
MD5 
PPM 
SOAP-Lite 
Tk 
URI 
XML-Parser 
XML-Simple 

ActiveState Corp., has chosen to use all Open Source content in the Ac
+tivePerl Package under the terms of the Artistic License.

All other components included in the ActivePerl Package are original w
+orks of ActiveState Corp., and may be used under the terms of the Act
+iveState Community License.
[download]

When you download and install a language distribution, the license is 
+included. It is not necessary to register or install a separate licen
+se in order to use the product. You are given the option to register 
+when you download the product, but this registration is only for the 
+purpose of receiving email announcements regarding new product releas
+es.

When you download and install a programming or productivity tool, you 
+must register in order to receive a license that will activate the pr
+oduct. You cannot use the product without installing a license. Time-
+limited trial licenses are available for all products. Some products,
+ including Komodo and the Perl Dev Kit, have an educational license t
+hat can be purchased at a discount.
[download]

Bottom line? If you want to program Perl on doze without paying for it then get used to using the built in command line tools. ActivePerl is freely available for download on ActiveState's site. Nobody's twisting your arm to purchase the rest of the cool tools that they have put together. Heck you may not need all the bells and whistles that come with ASPN Perl anyway. I get along just fine with the standard distribution and the Perl Dev Kit.

Here's one more thing to ponder: ActiveState has to deal with the Redmond behemoth. I'm more than happy to pay them for all the grief and stress they must deal with so that I can program Perl on doze. Think of it like law enforcement and firefighting...some folks deserve to get "danger pay".