If you are asking if you can use a snippet of code that was posted on PM in your own work, in most cases the answer is "yes".

This question has come up before, and while there has been much discussion I don't think there is a site policy posted somewhere. Some monks (such as xdg) have included a specific license statement in their signature, but this is the exception rather than the rule.

The following threads may be of interest (I found them using Super Search):

• So sue me
• The Code Catacombs submission page should have a license field.
• Musing on Monastery Content (most of this thread concerns ownership; a sub-thread discussing licensing starts at Re: Musing on Monastery Content)
• Copyright of code on Perlmonks

Update: added one link

Note that code posted by a monk may not be owned by the poster - a cautionary tale. Certainly if you are planning to make money off some non-trivial posted code, I'd clarify the licensing.

Considering the nature of the site, the nature of its nurture, and its prime subject matter, I'd have thought the Perl license most appropriate. For example (taken from XML::Twig):

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

A few pertinent links are:

• Licensing Revisited ... again and again.
• Licensing of Perl Modules (note this in particular)
• ~OT Licens(?:es)|(?:ing)
• GPL and LGPL linkage to Perl
• Using GPL'd Perl Modules in Commercial Software
• To Open Or Not To Open
• Licensing your software
• What would you do if you were Larry Wall?
• Licensing and Rape-Proofing your ideals.
• my new software license.

A few directly pertinent, a few cautionary tales, and at least one that is just a bit wierd.

Barring anything explicitly stating otherwise, I can't see how code posted here is anything but public domain. True, each person "owns" the copyright to what they post, but I'm not sure anyone expects anything but for their posts to be used - usually in production - by others.

That said, I wouldn't object to explicitly stating all code posted is assumed to be licensed under the Artistic License unless explicitly stated otherwise.

Thanks to the Berne Convention the post is automatically considrered copyrighted. To make it public domain the author would have to explicitly state such.

That's entirely true. However, although IANAL, I do believe that a "reasonable person" rule may apply. If I ask you a question, and you respond, even in writing, a "reasonable person" would assume that I am going to use your response in the context of my question, regardless of copyright.

Or, if I were to post some code to the Snippets section, a "reasonable person" would assume that I intend for people to use said code. If I did not want people to use it, I would not publish it in such a place.

As a further example, although I don't own the copyright to anything I read or heard in university, I think a "reasonable person" would infer that I was to use the information gained from those books and lectures in my career. And the same "reasonable person" would probably also infer that perlmonks is much like a school with multiple teachers and students (with a very thick, blurry line overlapping the two).

Again, IANAL, but if some monk tried to sue me for using their posted code in my own software (personal, public, or proprietary), I would definitely use a "reasonable person" defense.

For most license of code, it says in the license text. For how to apply the license, it should state where the license was written. Go there and it should have a HOWTO of sorts.