Re: perl modules' default licence

[ilmari@ilmari.org (Dagfinn Ilmari Mannsåker)]

Nicholas Clark <nick@ccl4.org> writes:

> I sometimes read in Debian Weekly News about discussions on debian-legal
> about problems with packaging perl modules for Debian because of the
> vagueness of the licensing terms they use. My understanding is that the
> phrase that causes problems is:
>
>   This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
>   it under the same terms as Perl itself.

The vaugeness stems from not specifying which Perl version's terms that
apply, which causes problems when/if Perl changes its license terms (as
happened when the Artistic Licene was added as an option to the GPL in
Perl version 4).

> Could debian-legal suggest a better phrasing for that default licence line

I use the following statement for the perl modules I package (after
having received clarification from upstream):

    This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
    it under the same terms as Perl itself, either:

      a) the GNU General Public License as published by the Free
         Software Foundation; either version 1, or (at your option) any
         later version, or

      b) the "Artistic License" which comes with Perl.

-- 
ilmari