Go through a few versions of Perl and read the copy of the Artistic License you see. It changes. There is simply no way that Larry OKed each change with the copyright holders, and so there is simply no way that he actually had the authority to make those changes. I noticed this when an old Debian had a different Artistic License than the current Perl. Specifically anyone distributing a commercial product that embeds a Perl interpreter really is in legal limbo and is essentially just crossing their fingers hoping no copyright holder dislikes them... This is why when I made an attempt at a new AL I mentioned that I thought the copyright statement on Perl should have some specific provision granting Larry or the designated maintainer some ability to relicense Perl should the need arise. Something like the following should do: Larry Wall reserves the right for he or his designated maintainer to release Perl under different licensing arrangements. Such special releases will be publically announced before hand, and there will be a period of at least two months for public discussion. The release will not go ahead if at the end of that period any copyright holders have remaining objections that cannot be resolved. This is expected to be an unusual event, and its purpose is to make it possible to resolve currently unforseen issues with the licensing of Perl. The wording I proposed to the AL would bind all who contribute under the AL to accept the new licensing if they did not object in the designated time period, yet avoids any requirement to assign copyright to someone else. This kind of term *would* have kept the changes to the AL from leading to the problem I just described in the current license. Cheers, Ben _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com.
