Dave Storrs wrote: > >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 Yes. >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.) Basically. >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." That is the general idea. It doesn't do it as soundly as the GPL. >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. > Because Larry is fine with both sets of terms. Additionally the Artistic License is not necessarily compatible with the GPL, and so dual-licensing trivially solves that, to the benefit of those who want to mix GPLed code and Perl. Conversely the GPL is not compatible with commercial uses that Perl is supposed to be used for. So they each have their role in the overall scheme. Cheers, Ben _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com.
