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1 | =head1 NAME |
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2 | |
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3 | perlpolicy - Various and sundry policies and commitments related to the perl core |
4 | |
5 | =head1 DESCRIPTION |
6 | |
7 | This document is the master document which records all written |
8 | policies about how the Perl 5 Porters collectively develop and maintain |
9 | the Perl core. |
10 | |
11 | |
12 | |
13 | =head1 CONTRIBUTED MODULES |
14 | |
15 | |
16 | =head2 A Social Contract about Artistic Control |
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17 | |
18 | What follows is a statement about artistic control, defined as the ability |
19 | of authors of packages to guide the future of their code and maintain |
20 | control over their work. It is a recognition that authors should have |
21 | control over their work, and that it is a responsibility of the rest of |
22 | the Perl community to ensure that they retain this control. It is an |
23 | attempt to document the standards to which we, as Perl developers, intend |
24 | to hold ourselves. It is an attempt to write down rough guidelines about |
25 | the respect we owe each other as Perl developers. |
26 | |
27 | This statement is not a legal contract. This statement is not a legal |
28 | document in any way, shape, or form. Perl is distributed under the GNU |
29 | Public License and under the Artistic License; those are the precise legal |
30 | terms. This statement isn't about the law or licenses. It's about |
31 | community, mutual respect, trust, and good-faith cooperation. |
32 | |
33 | We recognize that the Perl core, defined as the software distributed with |
34 | the heart of Perl itself, is a joint project on the part of all of us. |
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35 | From time to time, a script, module, or set of modules (hereafter referred |
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36 | to simply as a "module") will prove so widely useful and/or so integral to |
37 | the correct functioning of Perl itself that it should be distributed with |
38 | Perl core. This should never be done without the author's explicit |
39 | consent, and a clear recognition on all parts that this means the module |
40 | is being distributed under the same terms as Perl itself. A module author |
41 | should realize that inclusion of a module into the Perl core will |
42 | necessarily mean some loss of control over it, since changes may |
43 | occasionally have to be made on short notice or for consistency with the |
44 | rest of Perl. |
45 | |
46 | Once a module has been included in the Perl core, however, everyone |
47 | involved in maintaining Perl should be aware that the module is still the |
48 | property of the original author unless the original author explicitly |
49 | gives up their ownership of it. In particular: |
50 | |
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51 | =over |
52 | |
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53 | =item * |
54 | |
55 | The version of the module in the core should still be considered the |
56 | work of the original author. All patches, bug reports, and so |
57 | forth should be fed back to them. Their development directions |
58 | should be respected whenever possible. |
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59 | |
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60 | =item * |
61 | |
62 | Patches may be applied by the pumpkin holder without the explicit |
63 | cooperation of the module author if and only if they are very minor, |
64 | time-critical in some fashion (such as urgent security fixes), or if |
65 | the module author cannot be reached. Those patches must still be |
66 | given back to the author when possible, and if the author decides on |
67 | an alternate fix in their version, that fix should be strongly |
68 | preferred unless there is a serious problem with it. Any changes not |
69 | endorsed by the author should be marked as such, and the contributor |
70 | of the change acknowledged. |
71 | |
72 | =item * |
73 | |
74 | The version of the module distributed with Perl should, whenever |
75 | possible, be the latest version of the module as distributed by the |
76 | author (the latest non-beta version in the case of public Perl |
77 | releases), although the pumpkin holder may hold off on upgrading the |
78 | version of the module distributed with Perl to the latest version |
79 | until the latest version has had sufficient testing. |
80 | |
81 | =back |
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82 | |
83 | In other words, the author of a module should be considered to have final |
84 | say on modifications to their module whenever possible (bearing in mind |
85 | that it's expected that everyone involved will work together and arrive at |
86 | reasonable compromises when there are disagreements). |
87 | |
88 | As a last resort, however: |
89 | |
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90 | |
91 | If the author's vision of the future of their module is sufficiently |
92 | different from the vision of the pumpkin holder and perl5-porters as a |
93 | whole so as to cause serious problems for Perl, the pumpkin holder may |
94 | choose to formally fork the version of the module in the core from the |
95 | one maintained by the author. This should not be done lightly and |
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96 | should B<always> if at all possible be done only after direct input |
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97 | from Larry. If this is done, it must then be made explicit in the |
98 | module as distributed with Perl core that it is a forked version and |
99 | that while it is based on the original author's work, it is no longer |
100 | maintained by them. This must be noted in both the documentation and |
101 | in the comments in the source of the module. |
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102 | |
103 | Again, this should be a last resort only. Ideally, this should never |
104 | happen, and every possible effort at cooperation and compromise should be |
105 | made before doing this. If it does prove necessary to fork a module for |
106 | the overall health of Perl, proper credit must be given to the original |
107 | author in perpetuity and the decision should be constantly re-evaluated to |
108 | see if a remerging of the two branches is possible down the road. |
109 | |
110 | In all dealings with contributed modules, everyone maintaining Perl should |
111 | keep in mind that the code belongs to the original author, that they may |
112 | not be on perl5-porters at any given time, and that a patch is not |
113 | official unless it has been integrated into the author's copy of the |
114 | module. To aid with this, and with points #1, #2, and #3 above, contact |
115 | information for the authors of all contributed modules should be kept with |
116 | the Perl distribution. |
117 | |
118 | Finally, the Perl community as a whole recognizes that respect for |
119 | ownership of code, respect for artistic control, proper credit, and active |
120 | effort to prevent unintentional code skew or communication gaps is vital |
121 | to the health of the community and Perl itself. Members of a community |
122 | should not normally have to resort to rules and laws to deal with each |
123 | other, and this document, although it contains rules so as to be clear, is |
124 | about an attitude and general approach. The first step in any dispute |
125 | should be open communication, respect for opposing views, and an attempt |
126 | at a compromise. In nearly every circumstance nothing more will be |
127 | necessary, and certainly no more drastic measure should be used until |
128 | every avenue of communication and discussion has failed. |
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129 | |
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130 | =head1 CREDITS |
131 | |
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132 | Social Contract about Contributed Modules originally by Russ Allbery E<lt>rra@stanford.eduE<gt> and the perl5-porters. |
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133 | |