no one is asking for Perl to be GPL-only (was Re: licensing issues)

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Ben Tilly <[email protected]> wrote:

> Richard Stallman would *LOVE* it if Perl was placed under the GPL.

I can't speak for RMS, but I know that the FSF would not necessarily "love"
for Perl to be GPL'ed.

The FSF surely wants Perl to be under a GPL compatible license (and,
(GPL|SOMETHING) is always GPL-compatible, by default).  I don't think the
FSF has ever expressed a desire that Perl be GPL-only.  In fact, the FSF has
a policy of encouraging everyone to always dual-licensing (GPL|Artistic) for
Perl modules, to encourage uniformity, and avoid licensing confusion for
those who use lots of Perl modules.

(Indeed, it is quite unfortunate that there are so many modules on CPAN that
have chosen Artistic-only or GPL-only.)

Of course, the FSF and many others would like to see the Artistic license
clarified, so that it is definitely a free software license, and so that it
is completely clear that businesses who want to redistribute Perl for profit
can do so unfettered.  I wrote an RFC to propose such corrections to the
Artistic license.  We'll have to wait and see what Larry says about it.

-- 
Bradley M. Kuhn  -  http://www.ebb.org/bkuhn

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