Bug#458385: New version of Artistic License

[Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>]

martin f krafft <madduck@debian.org> writes:

> All of my packages use the AL2 for packaging. Your numbers seem off.

> I usually say

>   Released under the terms of the Artistic Licence 2.0

> and I link to
> http://www.perlfoundation.org/legal/licenses/artistic-2_0.html

Since this came up, while I don't want to make a big deal of this
(particularly if ftpmaster doesn't care), I don't believe this is a valid
Debian copyright file because it doesn't contain the license under which
the work is distributed (only a reference to it).  Policy 12.5 says:

    Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of its copyright
    information and distribution license in the file
    /usr/share/doc/package/copyright.

with only exceptions for common-licenses licenses.  The peril of not doing
this is underscored by the fact that the link you give above is invalid
and leads to a 404.  It's now:

    http://www.perlfoundation.org/artistic_license_2_0

apparently.  The Artistic 2.0 license, intriguingly, does not require that
it be included in distributions of the package, but I would still always
do so since otherwise one runs the risk of being ambiguous about what
license is intended or making it unnecessarily difficult for people to
find a copy.

> Also, the AL1 is only DFSG-free by overruling decision. The AL2 fixes
> that. It would be nice to make it easier, and give people an incentive,
> to deprecate AL1 so we can actually increase freedom in Debian.

I don't think anything Debian does with regards to distributing this
license will make any difference at all on who uses the original Artistic
License.  The vast majority of uses of it are by reference to the
licensing terms of Perl, and I think changing the licensing terms of Perl
will be the only thing that will make a difference.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>