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Re: Documentation: "How to get a CPAN module into debian"



Jeremiah C. Foster dijo [Fri, Aug 08, 2008 at 01:34:25PM +0200]:
> > I'm no expert in copyright/license stuff but IMO we need:
> > * An explict copyright statement in the form
> >   "Copyright YYYY (- YYYY) $copyrightholder(s)"
> > * and an explicit license
> 
> I am no expert either but an explicit copyright assignment with a
> name and email address would go a long way to solving this problem I
> feel, there are modules that do not do this, or there used to be.

The year is desirable, but not required.

> Can CPANTS maybe have a test for a LICENSE and COPYRIGHT file gabor?
> It seems likely that the debian perl group will be moving to a
> machine parseable copyright file format so perhaps there is an
> opportunity here to extend that format upstream into CPAN for
> simplicity's sake? Both groups (debian and perl) would benefit from a
> clear, simple copyright file format - it makes the license stronger.

+1.

There is a 'license' field in META.yml - However, the field can be
pretty much useless. It has documented values [1] such as:

open_source

    The distribution is licensed under some other Open Source
    Initiative-approved license listed at
    http://www.opensource.org/licenses/ .

restrictive

    The distribution may not be redistributed without special
    permission from the author and/or copyright holder.
unrestricted

    The distribution is licensed under a license that is not approved
    by www.opensource.org but that allows distribution without
    restrictions.

They don't only overlap other legal values, but are as vague as they
can be. :-/

> > > Jim Brandt  from TPF promised me on YAPC::NA to check how
> > > and where one should declare "the same license as perl"
> > > to make it strong enough to be defendable.
> > > I am expecting an exact phrasing of the sentence or sentences.
> > > Once we get that you too will be able to point CPAN authors
> > > to that statement and I hope we can add this check to CPANTS.
> 
> It sure would be great if some of the "Free Software" distros like
> OpenBSD, debian, and fedora could give input on this since it affects
> them the most - perl developers sometimes seem oblivious to licensing
> issues.

Besides, Perl licensing has changed over time...

Greetings,

-- 
Gunnar Wolf - gwolf@gwolf.org - (+52-55)5623-0154 / 1451-2244
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