Software::License::PD - Public Domain pseudo-license
version 1.001
In legal circles, Public Domain is defined as the absence of copyright (and therefore precludes the need for any license). Artistic works enter the Public Domain in two common situations:
Where the work carries no license or copyright information, and precedes the ratification of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works
Where the term of copyright has lapsed, the length of which varies between jurisdictions
Some authors have chosen to disclaim all rights to their works and attempt to release them into the Public Domain. This is a particularly contentious issue because some jurisdictions do not recognize an author's perogative to disclaim all rights to their own work. In European countries, authors can abandon their claim to copyright, but not Reputation Rights (which prevent people from removing your name from your work, among other things).
While I have researched the issue to some extent, I am not a lawyer and am not qualified to provide legal advice. I have used this license for some of my own packages, but am unsure whether it would stand up in a court of law.
The Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license is an extremely liberal license, which confers rights similar to Public Domain to the extent permissible by law. However, Creative Commons does not recommend the application of their licenses to software, see: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/FAQ#Can_I_use_a_Creative_Commons_license_for_software.3F
Several notable Open Source software projects have been released into the Public Domain:
SQLite, http://sqlite.org
Math::Random::ISAAC, as well as the algorithm and accompanying reference implementation, http://burtleburtle.net/bob/rand/isaacafa.html
The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, http://wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/index.html
The Public Domain in Copyright Law, http://edwardsamuels.com/copyright/beyond/articles/public.html
Placing documents into the public domain, http://cr.yp.to/publicdomain.html
Please report any bugs or feature requests on the bugtracker website http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Software-License-PD
When submitting a bug or request, please include a test-file or a patch to an existing test-file that illustrates the bug or desired feature.
Jonathan Yu <jawnsy@cpan.org>
This software is copyright (c) 2011 by Jonathan Yu <jawnsy@cpan.org>.
This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.
To install Software::License::PD, copy and paste the appropriate command in to your terminal.
cpanm
cpanm Software::License::PD
CPAN shell
perl -MCPAN -e shell install Software::License::PD
For more information on module installation, please visit the detailed CPAN module installation guide.