Programmers aren't experts on licensing, and don't want to be

I personally hold this view, but unfortunately a rather large sect of (open source, no less) programmers doesn't. I'd just as happily release everything I've ever written into the public domain. But there are some people -- the GNUheads in particular -- who have a tendency to get pretty peeved if you do anything with their code that isn't specified by their GPL. Since the code that I was intending to modify was written by someone who seems (by his website) to be a proponent of the GPL, I was inspired to ask for a licensing field to encourage people to specify what can and can't be done with code, lest someone (like me) do something with their code which was implicitly GPL and convert it into some license which is Not Compatible with GNU(TM).

The whole issue of software licensing is too complicated, and we should try to simplify things

Yep. Again, I agree. But as stated above, certain sects of programmers (again the GNUheads) disagree. In fact, the entire reason why the GNU | FSF and the GPL exist are for legal issues.

More often than not, I think, people post code here for the benefit of getting peer review -- e.g. before posting to CPAN or other forums where the focus is on distributing code rather than discussing how it's written. For that matter, I'd guess that with relatively few exceptions (notably PM-related code), most of the code downloads are for the sake of reviewing and sending feedback to the author.

I think it ironic to mention that the code which I was intending to modify was, in fact, PM-related.

• The default PM license (see below)
• The GNU Public License (GPL)
• The Same License As Perl Itself (if it's good enough for Larry...)
• None of the above -- poster supplies own license terms within the post

I find it interesting that the licenses which you've suggested do not include the one that I would use for licensing code.

(Maybe there are one or two others that are in common use...

I can name several, without pause.

(Having something that applies by default could cover all the past nodes where no licensing was specified.

That's extremely illegal, and would cause great uproar. There's no disclaimers anywhere (of which I know) stating the nature, ownership, or status of any code submitted to PM, and thus, the owners retain copyright of that code. You can't just relicense all of it because it's on a website that you run. This is the exact sort of thing that I'm trying to avoid and prevent with my suggestion.

In any event, the notion that legal actions might ensue from violations of license conditions stated on PM nodes seems quite implausible. Even the possibility that a monk might be sued for posting someone else's code as his/her own is pretty remote, since there is no financial gain to (im)poster, and probably not much in terms of tangible financial loss to the "plaintiff".

It's interesting that you feel so comfortable around people who use such licenses as the GPL and who have gone to court before because of violations of it. I personally don't feel like spending weeks or months in court with a GNUhead. It's not about financial gain, in most cases. It's a matter of principal.

Please keep in mind that I'm lobbying for this feature not because I'm a pedantic coder with nothing better to do than quabble licensing issues. I'm doing it to make people who do care about licensing issues happy. As stated above, I don't want to be a licensing expert -- but the presence of those who care so much about licensing means that I have to know about and deal with it. I really couldn't care less otherwise. Licensing detracts from the code, and that's (i.e., the code) what it's all about, right?