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Bug#436105: suggestion to add GPL-1 as a common licence



On Fri, 2010-06-11 at 14:40 +0200, gregor herrmann wrote:
> On Sat, 12 Jun 2010 00:25:57 +1200, Andrew McMillan wrote:
> 
> > If the code is v1-or-later then a trivial fork (by the original
> > developer) is able to relicense it as v2-or-later or v3-or-later.  If
> > the original developer is unhappy with doing that, then they do have
> > uncommon licensing desires.
> 
> Most perl modules are licensed "under the same terms as Perl itself",
> and perl is licensed under "GPL-1 or later" or Artistic.

Trying to get the significant number of upstream perl module copyright
holders to fork and relicense would probably be a fruitless adventure.

In fact upstream perl module developers may be reluctant to deviate from
Perl's copyright, quoting the FSF [1]:


License of Perl 5 and below
        
        This license is the disjunction of the Artistic License 1.0 and
        the GNU GPL—in other words, you can choose either of those two
        licenses. It qualifies as a free software license, but it may
        not be a real copyleft. It is compatible with the GNU GPL
        because the GNU GPL is one of the alternatives.
        
        We recommend you use this license for any Perl 4 or Perl 5
        package you write, to promote coherence and uniformity in Perl
        programming. Outside of Perl, we urge you not to use this
        license; it is better to use just the GNU GPL.
        
        
[1] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#PerlLicense


-- 
Matt Zagrabelny - mzagrabe@d.umn.edu - (218) 726 8844
University of Minnesota Duluth
Information Technology Systems & Services
PGP key 4096R/42A00942 2009-12-16
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He is not a fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot
lose.
-Jim Elliot

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