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
