PERLARTISTIC(1perl)

✨ NAME ✨

perlartistic — the Perl Artistic License, bestie. it's literally the legal vibe that lets people copy Perl and still keeps the Copyright Holder in their artistic main character era 💅

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

you can shout it out in Pod like this:

You can refer to this document in Pod via "L<perlartistic>"
Or you can see this document by entering "perldoc perlartistic"

yep, that's the whole synopsis. two lines. iconic. no notes 🫶

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so here's the tea: Perl is free software. you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of either:

• a) the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 1, or (at your option) any later version, or
• b) the "Artistic License" which comes with this Kit.

this doc right here? it's "The Artistic License". it exists so that modules, programs, etc. that wanna declare this as their distribution license can just link to it instead of retyping the whole thing. saving everyone's time, we love efficiency ✨

for the GNU General Public License, go see perlgpl.

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👑 The "Artistic License" 👑

🦋 Preamble 🦋

the intent of this document is to state the conditions under which a Package may be copied, such that the Copyright Holder maintains some semblance of artistic control over the development of the package, while giving the users of the package the right to use and distribute the Package in a more-or-less customary fashion, plus the right to make reasonable modifications. it's giving "you can play with my toys but pls don't break them" energy fr fr 💜

🌈 Definitions 🌈

• "Package" — refers to the collection of files distributed by the Copyright Holder, and derivatives of that collection of files created through textual modification.
• "Standard Version" — refers to such a Package if it has not been modified, or has been modified in accordance with the wishes of the Copyright Holder as specified below.
• "Copyright Holder" — is whoever is named in the copyright or copyrights for the package. that's them, the owner of the receipts 👑
• "You" — is you, if you're thinking about copying or distributing this Package. yes you, hi, this is about you bestie 🫶
• "Reasonable copying fee" — is whatever you can justify on the basis of media cost, duplication charges, time of people involved, and so on. (You will not be required to justify it to the Copyright Holder, but only to the computing community at large as a market that must bear the fee.)
• "Freely Available" — means that no fee is charged for the item itself, though there may be fees involved in handling the item. It also means that recipients of the item may redistribute it under the same conditions they received it.

⭐ Conditions ⭐

1. You may make and give away verbatim copies of the source form of the Standard Version of this Package without restriction, provided that you duplicate all of the original copyright notices and associated disclaimers. no skipping the credits, that's rude 😤
2. You may apply bug fixes, portability fixes and other modifications derived from the Public Domain or from the Copyright Holder. A Package modified in such a way shall still be considered the Standard Version.
3. You may otherwise modify your copy of this Package in any way, provided that you insert a prominent notice in each changed file stating how and when you changed that file, and provided that you do at least ONE of the following:
   • a) place your modifications in the Public Domain or otherwise make them Freely Available, such as by posting said modifications to Usenet or an equivalent medium, or placing the modifications on a major archive site such as uunet.uu.net, or by allowing the Copyright Holder to include your modifications in the Standard Version of the Package.
   • b) use the modified Package only within your corporation or organization.
   • c) rename any non-standard executables so the names do not conflict with standard executables, which must also be provided, and provide a separate manual page for each non-standard executable that clearly documents how it differs from the Standard Version.
   • d) make other distribution arrangements with the Copyright Holder.
4. You may distribute the programs of this Package in object code or executable form, provided that you do at least ONE of the following:
   • a) distribute a Standard Version of the executables and library files, together with instructions (in the manual page or equivalent) on where to get the Standard Version.
   • b) accompany the distribution with the machine-readable source of the Package with your modifications.
   • c) give non-standard executables non-standard names, and clearly document the differences in manual pages (or equivalent), together with instructions on where to get the Standard Version.
   • d) make other distribution arrangements with the Copyright Holder.
5. You may charge a reasonable copying fee for any distribution of this Package. You may charge any fee you choose for support of this Package. You may not charge a fee for this Package itself. However, you may distribute this Package in aggregate with other (possibly commercial) programs as part of a larger (possibly commercial) software distribution provided that you do not advertise this Package as a product of your own. You may embed this Package's interpreter within an executable of yours (by linking); this shall be construed as a mere form of aggregation, provided that the complete Standard Version of the interpreter is so embedded.
6. The scripts and library files supplied as input to or produced as output from the programs of this Package do not automatically fall under the copyright of this Package, but belong to whoever generated them, and may be sold commercially, and may be aggregated with this Package. If such scripts or library files are aggregated with this Package via the so-called "undump" or "unexec" methods of producing a binary executable image, then distribution of such an image shall neither be construed as a distribution of this Package nor shall it fall under the restrictions of Paragraphs 3 and 4, provided that you do not represent such an executable image as a Standard Version of this Package.
7. C subroutines (or comparably compiled subroutines in other languages) supplied by you and linked into this Package in order to emulate subroutines and variables of the language defined by this Package shall not be considered part of this Package, but are the equivalent of input as in Paragraph 6, provided these subroutines do not change the language in any way that would cause it to fail the regression tests for the language.
8. Aggregation of this Package with a commercial distribution is always permitted provided that the use of this Package is embedded; that is, when no overt attempt is made to make this Package's interfaces visible to the end user of the commercial distribution. Such use shall not be construed as a distribution of this Package.
9. The name of the Copyright Holder may not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission. no name-dropping for clout, periodt 🚫✨
10. THIS PACKAGE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

okay real talk, that last one is the loud one for a reason. no warranties, none, zero, not even the implied ones. read it, respect it, don't come for anyone later 💀

🌟 The End 🌟

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and that's the whole license bestie, you made it to the end, so proud of you 😭💖

this whole page is from perl v5.44.0, dated 2026-10-17 — the Perl Programmers Reference Guide said it, so it's canon 🌈 mwah 💅