On Fri, 09 Oct 2009, David Golden wrote: > On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 7:50 AM, David Golden <xda...@gmail.com> wrote: > > 17. Better formalization of license field > > > > Proposal: > > > > Replace the list of strings for the "license" field with something > > extensible and unambiguous. (RicardoSignes) > > I would prefer to remove the "license" field entirely.
I kind of like the simplicity of the single field, as many modules are either "same terms as Perl", "just GPL" or "just Artistic". So I would prefer to leave it as is (with a fixed set of predefined values), and then just for the "complicated" distribution use the complex description with links in the resources section. > In the "resources" section, there is a "license" key. Let's make that > a hash, instead, with name/URL pairs. Any licenses which may apply to > any part of the distribution should be listed. (I.e. multiple entries > do *not* mean license options like artistic/gpl) > > Licensing is not something that is so simple that it can expressed > with confidence in a single field for an entire distribution. By > listing it in resources instead, we make it easy for > search.cpan.org to provide useful information but ultimately, > knowing the exact license details will require people to read the > source, not the META file. I would prefer to specify the "license" field as authoritative for CPAN packages; if the maintainer puts in the license type "perl" then that should be trusted. If the licensing is more complicated, then the maintainer should not set this field. Optimize for the common case, and encourage package authors to use simple licensing that is compatible with Perl itself! If you cannot trust[1] the field, then I think it is useless and agree that it should be removed completely. Cheers, -Jan
