Name advice: check license of dependencies
I'm toying with starting a new module and would like some naming advice. My module will accept the name of another module and, using CPAN metadata and/or package contents, determine the license of that module's package and the license of all non-core packages that it in turn depends on. This module would be useful for determining redistribution rights for aggregations of code, like PAR files. It will probably employ CPANPLUS, YAML, Module::Depends, Module::Corelist and a bunch of heuristics to make its determination. For example, my module CAM::PDF is Artistic/GPL but it depends on Text::PDF which is just Artistic. This new module would help me to discover that fact. I don't like any of the names I've come up with so far. It seems clear that it should be in the Module:: namespace, but beyond that I'm unsure. Possibilities: Module::GuessLicense Module::License Module::LicenseChain Module::DistributionRights Thanks, Chris -- Chris Dolan, Software Developer, Clotho Advanced Media Inc. 608-294-7900, fax 294-7025, 1435 E Main St, Madison WI 53703 Clotho Advanced Media, Inc. - Creators of MediaLandscape Software (http://www.media-landscape.com/) and partners in the revolutionary Croquet project (http://www.opencroquet.org/)
Re: Name advice: check license of dependencies
On Mon, Oct 31, 2005 at 10:08:53AM -0600, Chris Dolan wrote: I'm toying with starting a new module and would like some naming advice. My module will accept the name of another module and, using CPAN metadata and/or package contents, determine the license of that module's package and the license of all non-core packages that it in turn depends on. This module would be useful for determining redistribution rights for aggregations of code, like PAR files. It will probably employ CPANPLUS, YAML, Module::Depends, Module::Corelist and a bunch of heuristics to make its determination. For example, my module CAM::PDF is Artistic/GPL but it depends on Text::PDF which is just Artistic. This new module would help me to discover that fact. I don't like any of the names I've come up with so far. It seems clear that it should be in the Module:: namespace, but beyond that I'm unsure. Possibilities: Module::GuessLicense Module::License Module::LicenseChain Module::DistributionRights From your description, this is much as about a module's dependencies as it as a about a specific module. So I'll suggest: Module::Depends::LicenseReport Including Report signifies that the module has a read-only purpose. Mark
Re: Name advice: check license of dependencies
On Mon, 2005-10-31 at 11:20 -0500, Mark Stosberg wrote: I don't like any of the names I've come up with so far. It seems clear that it should be in the Module:: namespace, but beyond that I'm unsure. Possibilities: Module::GuessLicense Module::License Module::LicenseChain Module::DistributionRights From your description, this is much as about a module's dependencies as it as a about a specific module. So I'll suggest: Module::Depends::LicenseReport Including Report signifies that the module has a read-only purpose. On the other hand, a license might be seen to implicitly imply dependency on all of the things that it depends on (esp. if any are GPL). I think your point is very valid, and perhaps the logic for figuring a module's dependencies recursively should be available independently from the logic to show the license for an individual module. So, perhaps Module::Depends and Module::License Module::License::(Report|Chain|...) Sam.
