in reply to Licensing of Perl Modules

I say it's not broken, so lets not fix it. Debian has included Perl modules before so what's suddenly changed?

Any proposed 'solution' which requires an update to every distribution on CPAN is unlikely to be successfull. Any 'solution' which requires every distribution on CPAN to include a copy of either or both of the GPL and the Artistic license as at the release date of the distribution also doesn't sound like a terribly good idea.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Re: Licensing of Perl Modules
by theorbtwo (Prior) on Feb 05, 2003 at 04:46 UTC

    IIRC, the GPL requires that you include a copy with the licensed work. (After checking...) Yep, the end of clause 1 reads "...give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program". In other words, all distributions of a GPLed program must include a copy of the license.

    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).

[reply]
Re: Re: Licensing of Perl Modules
by dondelelcaro (Monk) on Feb 05, 2003 at 16:48 UTC
    Any proposed 'solution' which requires an update to every distribution on CPAN is unlikely to be successfull.

    I don't think that anyone is yet calling for all authors of modules to change their licenses instantly. However, it was a problem of clarity in the licensing that was brought up by one of the ftpmasters responsible for allowing packages into Debian, and a few other individuals, many of whom also package perl modules for Debian, thought it was a significant problem.

    I personally am going to be asking my upstreams of the modules that I package to clarify the terms that their modules are released under, unless the discussion here (and/or) on debian-legel leads me to believe that it's not a problem.
[reply]

      Far from simplifying matters, I think that having each CPAN author 'clarify' their licensing position is only going to make things more confusing.

      The current situation is that Perl can be used under either the GPL or the Artistic license. A user can evaluate those licenses (which come with Perl) and make their own decision on whether they are happy to use Perl under those terms.

      A CPAN module is effectively an extension to Perl. If the module contains a clear statement that it is licensed under the same terms as Perl itself then the user does not need to make another decision. They have already decided Perl's licensing terms are acceptable. They can see that the module they want to use is licensed under the same terms and they can carry on.

      On the other hand, if each module author 'clarified' their licensing position by re-stating Perl's licensing terms then a user would need to read that statement and any accompanying license files and repeat the decision making process. The more words that a module author uses to clarify things, the more chance there is of making a mistake or introducing an inconsistency.

      I'm not saying that every CPAN module should have the exact same licensing terms - authors should continue to have the freedom to choose. But, if they choose to use 'the same terms as Perl itself' then they are saying to a potential user "don't worry about the license - you already made your decision about Perl's license and this is the same".

[reply]

In Section Meditations