Software::License(3)

NAME
Software::License - packages that provide templated software licenses

VERSION
version 0.104007

SYNOPSIS
  my $license = Software::License::Discordian->new({
    holder => 'Ricardo Signes',
  });

  print $output_fh $license->fulltext;

PERL VERSION
This module is part of CPAN toolchain, or is treated as such. As such, it follows the agreement of the Perl Toolchain Gang to require no newer version of perl than one released in the last ten years. This version may change by agreement of the Toolchain Gang, but for now is governed by the Lancaster Consensus <https://github.com/Perl-Toolchain-Gang/toolchain-site/blob/master/lancaster-consensus.md> of 2013 and the Lyon Amendment of 2023 (described at the linked-to document).

Although it may work on older versions of perl, no guarantee is made that the minimum required version will not be increased. The version may be increased for any reason, and there is no promise that patches will be accepted to lower the minimum required perl.

METHODS

  new
  my $license = $subclass->new(\%arg);

This method returns a new license object for the given license class. Valid arguments are:

holder
    the holder of the copyright; required

year
    the year of copyright; defaults to current year

program
    the name of software for use in the middle of a sentence

Program
    the name of software for use in the beginning of a sentence

"program" and "Program" arguments may be specified both, either one or none. Each argument, if not specified, is defaulted to another one, or to properly capitalized "this program", if both arguments are omitted.

  year

  holder
These methods are attribute readers.

  program
Name of software for using in the middle of a sentence.

The method returns value of "program" constructor argument (if it evaluates as true, i. e. defined, non-empty, non-zero), or value of "Program" constructor argument (if it is true), or "this program" as the last resort.

  Program
Name of software for using in the middle of a sentence.

The method returns value of "Program" constructor argument (if it is true), or value of "program" constructor argument (if it is true), or "This program" as the last resort.

  name
This method returns the name of the license, suitable for shoving in the middle of a sentence, generally with a leading capitalized "The."

  url
This method returns the URL at which a canonical text of the license can be found, if one is available. If possible, this will point at plain text, but it may point to an HTML resource.

  notice
This method returns a snippet of text, usually a few lines, indicating the copyright holder and year of copyright, as well as an indication of the license under which the software is distributed.

  license
This method returns the full text of the license.

  fulltext
This method returns the complete text of the license, preceded by the copyright notice.

  version
This method returns the version of the license. If the license is not versioned, this method will return false.

  meta_name
This method returns the string that should be used for this license in the CPAN META.yml file, according to the CPAN Meta spec v1, or undef if there is no known string to use.

This method may also be invoked as "meta_yml_name" for legacy reasons.

  meta2_name
This method returns the string that should be used for this license in the CPAN META.json or META.yml file, according to the CPAN Meta spec v2, or undef if there is no known string to use. If this method does not exist, and "meta_name" returns open_source, restricted, unrestricted, or unknown, that value will be used.

  spdx_expression
This method should return the string with the spdx identifier as indicated by <https://spdx.org/licenses/>

LOOKING UP LICENSE CLASSES
If you have an entry in a META.yml or META.json file, or similar metadata, and want to look up the Software::License class to use, there are useful tools in Software::LicenseUtils.

TODO

•   register licenses with aliases to allow $registry->get('gpl', 2);

SEE ALSO
The specific license:

•   Software::License::AGPL_3

•   Software::License::Apache_1_1

•   Software::License::Apache_2_0

•   Software::License::Artistic_1_0

•   Software::License::Artistic_1_0_Perl

•   Software::License::Artistic_2_0

•   Software::License::BSD

•   Software::License::CC0_1_0

•   Software::License::Custom

•   Software::License::EUPL_1_1

•   Software::License::EUPL_1_2

•   Software::License::FreeBSD

•   Software::License::GFDL_1_2

•   Software::License::GFDL_1_3

•   Software::License::GPL_1

•   Software::License::GPL_2

•   Software::License::GPL_3

•   Software::License::LGPL_2_1

•   Software::License::LGPL_3_0

•   Software::License::MIT

•   Software::License::Mozilla_1_0

•   Software::License::Mozilla_1_1

•   Software::License::Mozilla_2_0

•   Software::License::None

•   Software::License::OpenSSL

•   Software::License::Perl_5

•   Software::License::PostgreSQL

•   Software::License::QPL_1_0

•   Software::License::SSLeay

•   Software::License::Sun

•   Software::License::Zlib

Extra licenses are maintained on CPAN in separate modules.

The App::Software::License module comes with a script software-license <https://metacpan.org/pod/distribution/App-Software-License/script/software-license>, which provides a command-line interface to Software::License.

AUTHOR
Ricardo Signes <cpan@semiotic.systems>

CONTRIBUTORS

•   Alex Kapranoff <kappa@yandex.ru>

•   Andrew Grangaard <granny-github@ofb.net>

•   Axel Beckert <abe@deuxchevaux.org>

•   Bernardo Rechea <brbpub@gmail.com>

•   Bernhard Amann <bernhard@icsi.berkeley.edu>

•   bowtie <bowtie@cpan.org>

•   Brian Cassidy <bricas@cpan.org>

•   Brian Phillips <bphillips@digitalriver.com>

•   Craig Scrivner <scrivner@geology.cwu.edu>

•   Curtis Brandt <curtis@cpan.org>

•   Dave Rolsky <autarch@urth.org>

•   David E. Wheeler <david@justatheory.com>

•   David Golden <dagolden@cpan.org>

•   Dominique Dumont <dod@debian.org>

•   Dylan William Hardison <dylan@hardison.net>

•   Flavio Poletti <flavio@polettix.it>

•   Florian Ragwitz <rafl@debian.org>

•   Graham Knop <haarg@haarg.org>

•   Justin Baker <me@jbaker.dev>

•   jvolkening <jdv@base2bio.com>

•   Kang-min Liu <gugod@gugod.org>

•   Karen Etheridge <ether@cpan.org>

•   Kenichi Ishigaki <ishigaki@cpan.org>

•   Kivanc Yazan <kivancyazan@gmail.com>

•   Leon Timmermans <fawaka@gmail.com>

•   magnolia <magnolia.k@me.com>

•   Marcel Telka <marcel@telka.sk>

•   mikegrb <mgreb@linode.com>

•   Neil Bowers <neil@bowers.com>

•   Nicolas Rochelemagne <rochelemagne@cpanel.net>

•   Olivier Mengué <dolmen@cpan.org>

•   Pablo Rodríguez González <pablo.rodriguez.gonzalez@gmail.com>

•   Petr Písař <ppisar@redhat.com>

•   Ricardo Signes <rjbs@semiotic.systems>

•   Shlomi Fish <shlomif@iglu.org.il>

•   srchulo <violapiratejunky@gmail.com>

•   Syohei YOSHIDA <syohex@gmail.com>

•   Tomasz Konojacki <me@xenu.pl>

•   Van de Bugger <van.de.bugger@gmail.com>

•   Wesley Schwengle <wesley@schwengle.net>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
This software is copyright (c) 2025 by Ricardo Signes.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.