Something that I am a little stuck on...here is my understanding of the
way Perl is currently distributed and what it all means. I think I must
be confused about something...could someone straighten me out?
1) Works developed in Perl may be distributed under either the GPL or the
AL, dealer's choice
2) The (much simplified) message of the GPL is: "You must make your source
available, and anything that you develop which uses something under the
GPL, must be covered by the GPL." (This second part is the so-called
"viral" component of the GPL, and is the prime component which scares
business away from the GPL.)
3) The (much simplified) message of the AL is: "Larry Wall owns the
copyright to Perl. You may use Perl, but you need to acknowledge his
moral authority when attempting to make changes to Perl or perl, and you
may not sell perl or its associated components (e.g. CPAN modules) for
profit."
If I'm not misunderstaning anything, then it seems to me that these
licenses address very different concerns. Why do we give people the
choice of two different licenses to distribute under? It seems to me that
that can only lead to confusion.
Dave
