I would like to add a word of caution here, before you go out and for lack of answer from the author, take over the maintenance of these modules.

First and foremost one has to look into the licence under which the module is published. The fact that you are allowed to use the modules for "free" does not necessarily mean that you may change them and re-publish them under the same name. Even "open source" licences can still reserve the copyright of the module. While derivative work is generally less of a problem (read: opening a new branch based upon a common basis), most of the time you cannot re-use the basename. There are a huge number of "open source" licences out there and each one is at least a little different from all others.

The Artistic Licence is very clear that you cannot re-use the original name for your derivative work. The GPL is less clear in that respect, but IMO neither does it allow you to re-use the orignal name. Both of these licences apply to Sybase::RepAgent. For Sybase::TdsServer I could not find any licence, which is actually worse since it means full copyright rules would apply!

CountZero

"If you have four groups working on a compiler, you'll get a 4-pass compiler." - Conway's Law

In reply to Re: Is it worth tracking down absent cpan owners? by CountZero
in thread Is it worth tracking down absent cpan owners? by jfroebe

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