109 lines
6.0 KiB
Plaintext
109 lines
6.0 KiB
Plaintext
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Contributed Modules in Perl Core
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A Social Contract about Artistic Control
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What follows is a statement about artistic control, defined as the ability
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of authors of packages to guide the future of their code and maintain
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control over their work. It is a recognition that authors should have
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control over their work, and that it is a responsibility of the rest of
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the Perl community to ensure that they retain this control. It is an
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attempt to document the standards to which we, as Perl developers, intend
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to hold ourselves. It is an attempt to write down rough guidelines about
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the respect we owe each other as Perl developers.
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This statement is not a legal contract. This statement is not a legal
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document in any way, shape, or form. Perl is distributed under the GNU
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Public License and under the Artistic License; those are the precise legal
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terms. This statement isn't about the law or licenses. It's about
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community, mutual respect, trust, and good-faith cooperation.
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We recognize that the Perl core, defined as the software distributed with
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the heart of Perl itself, is a joint project on the part of all of us.
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>From time to time, a script, module, or set of modules (hereafter referred
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to simply as a "module") will prove so widely useful and/or so integral to
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the correct functioning of Perl itself that it should be distributed with
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Perl core. This should never be done without the author's explicit
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consent, and a clear recognition on all parts that this means the module
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is being distributed under the same terms as Perl itself. A module author
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should realize that inclusion of a module into the Perl core will
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necessarily mean some loss of control over it, since changes may
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occasionally have to be made on short notice or for consistency with the
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rest of Perl.
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Once a module has been included in the Perl core, however, everyone
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involved in maintaining Perl should be aware that the module is still the
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property of the original author unless the original author explicitly
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gives up their ownership of it. In particular:
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1) The version of the module in the core should still be considered the
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work of the original author. All patches, bug reports, and so forth
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should be fed back to them. Their development directions should be
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respected whenever possible.
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2) Patches may be applied by the pumpkin holder without the explicit
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cooperation of the module author if and only if they are very minor,
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time-critical in some fashion (such as urgent security fixes), or if
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the module author cannot be reached. Those patches must still be
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given back to the author when possible, and if the author decides on
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an alternate fix in their version, that fix should be strongly
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preferred unless there is a serious problem with it. Any changes not
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endorsed by the author should be marked as such, and the contributor
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of the change acknowledged.
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3) The version of the module distributed with Perl should, whenever
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possible, be the latest version of the module as distributed by the
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author (the latest non-beta version in the case of public Perl
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releases), although the pumpkin holder may hold off on upgrading the
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version of the module distributed with Perl to the latest version
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until the latest version has had sufficient testing.
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In other words, the author of a module should be considered to have final
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say on modifications to their module whenever possible (bearing in mind
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that it's expected that everyone involved will work together and arrive at
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reasonable compromises when there are disagreements).
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As a last resort, however:
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4) If the author's vision of the future of their module is sufficiently
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different from the vision of the pumpkin holder and perl5-porters as a
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whole so as to cause serious problems for Perl, the pumpkin holder may
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choose to formally fork the version of the module in the core from the
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one maintained by the author. This should not be done lightly and
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should *always* if at all possible be done only after direct input
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from Larry. If this is done, it must then be made explicit in the
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module as distributed with Perl core that it is a forked version and
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that while it is based on the original author's work, it is no longer
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maintained by them. This must be noted in both the documentation and
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in the comments in the source of the module.
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Again, this should be a last resort only. Ideally, this should never
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happen, and every possible effort at cooperation and compromise should be
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made before doing this. If it does prove necessary to fork a module for
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the overall health of Perl, proper credit must be given to the original
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author in perpetuity and the decision should be constantly re-evaluated to
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see if a remerging of the two branches is possible down the road.
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In all dealings with contributed modules, everyone maintaining Perl should
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keep in mind that the code belongs to the original author, that they may
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not be on perl5-porters at any given time, and that a patch is not
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official unless it has been integrated into the author's copy of the
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module. To aid with this, and with points #1, #2, and #3 above, contact
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information for the authors of all contributed modules should be kept with
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the Perl distribution.
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Finally, the Perl community as a whole recognizes that respect for
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ownership of code, respect for artistic control, proper credit, and active
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effort to prevent unintentional code skew or communication gaps is vital
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to the health of the community and Perl itself. Members of a community
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should not normally have to resort to rules and laws to deal with each
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other, and this document, although it contains rules so as to be clear, is
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about an attitude and general approach. The first step in any dispute
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should be open communication, respect for opposing views, and an attempt
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at a compromise. In nearly every circumstance nothing more will be
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necessary, and certainly no more drastic measure should be used until
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every avenue of communication and discussion has failed.
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--
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Version 1.2. By Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu) and the perl5-porters.
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