[Bioperl-l] Clarifying license of bioperl

[Alex Lancaster]

>>>>> "CF" == Chris Fields  writes:

[...]

>> Sure, I was just pointing out that you can avoid even these things
>> if you choose the Artistic license.  I have no problem with the
>> GPL, but some people do.  The other possibility (if the current
>> Perl "GPL or Artistic" is not a possibility) is simply upgrading to
>> the "Artistic 2.0" license adopted by the Perl Foundation for Perl
>> 6 and later (I think?):

>> http://www.perlfoundation.org/artistic_license_2_0

>> it's a GPL-compatible free software license.

CF> Switching to Artistic 2.0 is probably the best way to go.  We'll
CF> need a more involved discussion but I don't think there'll be too
CF> many objections.  You mention GPL-compatibility; is that for v2
CF> and v3?

IANAL, but looking at:

http://www.perlfoundation.org/artistic_2_0_notes

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html (scroll down to
"Artistic 2.0")

it looks like you can choose any GPL license (i.e. v1 to v3).

I was really more concerned with clarifying what the bioperl license
was *right now*, because "the same license as Perl" implies the
so-called "disjunctive" "GPL or Artistic license":

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#PerlLicense

which is what I've marked the Fedora package as (since it listed "the
same license as Perl" in most of the source files), which is fine for
Fedora.

Fedora may possibly (still under discussion I believe) require removal
of any package that is licensed under the original (1.0) Artistic
alone and it would be a real shame if that required bioperl being
pulled from the repo.  I imagine the intent of the bioperl
contributors is that it should be under the same terms as Perl,
whatever that happens to be (which just happens to be GPL or Artistic,
which is fine).  A clarification to that effect would be useful.

Cheers,
Alex