I recently used the "Feedback" section on search.cpan.org to ask the following question:
>> I've noticed that the CPAN interface for modules now includes a >> space for the module's "License" -- but that few modules have any >> entry here (e.g., http://search.cpan.org/~jkeenan/List-Compare- >> 0.22/ http://search.cpan.org/~lds/CGI.pm-3.01/ >> http://search.cpan.org/~dconway/Parse-RecDescent-1.94/ ). >> >> Is this because when we use h2xs to set up the skeleton of a >> distribution, nothing special is done for License? >> >> Or is it because MakeMaker doesn't yet do anything for special >> for License in the way that it does for, say, YAML? >> >> What should I do to get something that will show up in License? >> Or should I not (yet) bother? >> Graham Barr picked up my query and was kind of enough to respond quickly, as follows: > > The license details are taken from the META.yml file. Both > MakeMaker, Module::Build and Module::Install can all generate > META.yml files. If they all support all fields, I do no know. > > Graham. Per consultation with people on this list, in my two CPAN distributions I have allowed MakeMaker (v6.16) to automatically generate the META.yml file, and I have not made any edits in that file once generated. The file thus generated contains no License information and, if I understand Graham correctly, that means no License info is going to show up on the search.cpan.org main page for each distribution. Is there anything I could do to generate the License info? Perhaps more to the point, at this point in the development of META.yml, _should_ I do anything about this? (I'm not losing any sleep over this. It's just that I'm always puzzled when I see "License: Unknown" on my distros' main pages, when I've included the standard language about "same terms as Perl itself" in the POD.) jimk
