On Jul 7, 2006, at 8:13 AM, Shlomi Fish wrote:
This kind of attitude was also said by another responder to this
mailing list.
It's sort of a "small headed" (see
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2004/12/06.html ) "I just want
to write
code and am not interested in any legal details" attitude.
May I suggest a compromise? As the author of the MIT-licensed code
in Test::Run, Shlomi has the option of releasing the code under any
license he prefers. Shlomi can releases *two* versions of Test::Run
with every update -- a mixed license version and an Artistic/GPL
version. With that solution, Shlomi himself shoulders the burden of
resolving license compatibility and tracking which line of code is
under which license.
I do believe that the quest for license simplicity in the Perl core
is not "small headed" or rooted in ignorance, but is instead
inspired. While many developers or TPF itself could easily delve
deep enough to decide whether MIT/BSD licensed code in the core is a
threat, I think that would be a wasted effort. The increased
complexity of licensing (whether real or perceived) could easily turn
off third parties with less dedication to Perl, thereby decreasing
the attractiveness of the language.
After all, software engineering is largely about reducing the exposed
complexity of a project.
Chris
--
Chris Dolan, Software Developer, Clotho Advanced Media Inc.
608-294-7900, fax 294-7025, 1435 E Main St, Madison WI 53703
vCard: http://www.chrisdolan.net/ChrisDolan.vcf
Clotho Advanced Media, Inc. - Creators of MediaLandscape Software
(http://www.media-landscape.com/) and partners in the revolutionary
Croquet project (http://www.opencroquet.org/)
