in reply to Re: Re (tilly) 2: licensing confusion
in thread licensing confusion

Sorry, I should have checked the licensing.

Yes, if you include something licensed under Perl's Artistic License in your code, but don't try to provide any external interface to it, then you are in the clear. This is true even if it is dual licensed with the GPL.

There are, as well, other ways to satisfy the Artistic License while still providing a public interface to some of the wrapped facilities. You can read the license terms for full details.

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Re: Re (tilly) 4: licensing confusion
by david54321 (Acolyte) on Oct 30, 2001 at 10:12 UTC
    I PROMISE last question on this ;)

    You said "Yes, if you include something licensed under Perl's Artistic License in your code, but don't try to provide any external interface to it, then you are in the clear. This is true even if it is dual licensed with the GPL"

    But the FSF disagrees, because you also said "And their answer is that if you wish to use LWP(if it was GPL), your program must be GPLed."

    Even if you don't expose a GPL module to the outside world, the FSF might say that just calling some functions in a GPL module means your product is now GPL.

    Again, thanks a ton !!!
[reply]
      The answer is that dual licensing changes most of what the FSF has to say. :-)

      The structure of the GPL is that they give you specific permission to do things prohibited by copyright. Should you do things like modify and distribute the code, then you are assumed to have accepted the GPL because it is the only way you wouldn't be breaking the law. Therefore if you distribute, you are bound by what the GPL says.

      However when you are dual licensed, this assumption falls to pieces. You are distributing a modified version of the software. But you could be distributing it under either the Artistic or GPL licenses. If the GPL is unfriendly to you, then why wouldn't you be choosing to distribute under the Artistic license instead? So if anyone says, "The GPL doesn't allow this!" you just say, "I never had to, nor did I, accept the GPL. I am therefore not bound by it."

      Or at least that is the theory that Larry Wall came up with. (To the best of my knowledge he invented it.)

[reply]
        In fact, this is exactly what ActiveState has done with ActivePerl. They explicitly state that they are using the Artistic License in their redistribution of Perl source, binaries, and modules. For their own value-adds, they use their own license-- which, IIRC, is a fairly friendly license (although most of its friendliness is due to the fact that they have to comply with either the AL or the GPL). What impact ActiveState specifically removing the GPL from the license options has, I don't want to speculate.

        I've never actually perused the licenses on any of the modules I've downloaded from CPAN or in the Perl core module set, as I'm under the impression that they are all covered under the same terms as Perl (using phrases recommended by the Artistic License itself in most cases). Are there any exceptions that are notable in this regard?\

        Clarification: the following is from the ActivePerl 'copyright.html' file in their installed distribution: ActiveState Tool Corp., has chosen to use all Open Source content in the ActivePerl Package under the terms of the Artistic License. Which I interpret to mean that they are explicitly choosing one of the licenses out of the dual license offering, and would guess this affects work derived from ActiveState's distribution.
[reply]

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