The Artistic License refers most commonly to the original Artistic License (version 1.0), a software license used for certain free and open source software packages, most notably the standard Perl implementation and most CPAN modules, which are dual-licensed under the Artistic License and the GNU General Public License (GPL). The original Artistic License was written by Larry Wall. The name of the license is a reference to the concept of artistic license.
The terms of the Artistic License 1.0 were at issue in a 2007 federal district court decision in the US which was criticized by some for suggesting that FOSS-like licenses could only be enforced through contract law rather than through copyright law, in contexts where contract damages would be difficult to establish. On appeal, a federal appellate court "determined that the terms of the Artistic License are enforceable copyright conditions".
The case was remanded to the District Court which did not apply the superior court's criteria (on the grounds that in the interim, the Supreme Court had changed the applicable law). However, this left undisturbed the finding that a free and open source license nonetheless has economic value.
Read more about Artistic License: Artistic License 1.0, Artistic License 2.0
Famous quotes containing the words artistic and/or license:
“Well then! Wagner was a revolutionary—he fled the Germans.... As an artist one has no home in Europe outside Paris: the délicatesse in all five artistic senses that is presupposed by Wagner’s art, the fingers for nuances, the psychological morbidity are found only in Paris. Nowhere else is this passion in questions of form to be found, this seriousness in mise en scène—which is Parisian seriousness par excellence.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“I go out of my way, but rather by license than carelessness.... It is the inattentive reader
who loses my subject, not I. Some word about it will always be found off in a corner, which will not fail to be sufficient, though it takes little room.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)