Re: Thoughts on Kik and NPM and implications for CPAN

On Wednesday 23 March 2016 11:07:34 David Golden wrote:

> * I think we have to allow mass deletion, even if that de-indexes stuff.  I
> think that's an author's right.

I've never gotten that argument. The code in question is usually under a very 
permissive license. Publishing code under such a license is a very conscious 
decision of the author. People trust the author and build on this foundation. 
Among those people are the ones that run CPAN and its mirrors. They too are 
only allowed to distribute the code because the license says so. When people 
download distros from CPAN they do so as sub licensees of whoever runs their 
favorite CPAN mirror.

Now if the original author decides to no longer publish her code, that's 
absolutely fine. I just don't get why CPAN should follow suite and do the 
same. We don't demand this of BackPAN and we don't demand the same from other 
users who trusted the license. Why is CPAN literally the only entity that 
should go beyond the license and do the author's bidding? Considering that 
copyright exists solely to benefit the public, I have to ask: how is the 
public served by this self censorship?

Stefan