1 2 Perl Kit, Version 5.0 3 4 Copyright 1989-2001, Larry Wall 5 All rights reserved. 6 7 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify 8 it under the terms of either: 9 10 a) the GNU General Public License as published by the Free 11 Software Foundation; either version 1, or (at your option) any 12 later version, or 13 14 b) the "Artistic License" which comes with this Kit. 15 16 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, 17 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of 18 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See either 19 the GNU General Public License or the Artistic License for more details. 20 21 You should have received a copy of the Artistic License with this 22 Kit, in the file named "Artistic". If not, I'll be glad to provide one. 23 24 You should also have received a copy of the GNU General Public License 25 along with this program in the file named "Copying". If not, write to the 26 Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 27 02111-1307, USA or visit their web page on the internet at 28 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html. 29 30 For those of you that choose to use the GNU General Public License, 31 my interpretation of the GNU General Public License is that no Perl 32 script falls under the terms of the GPL unless you explicitly put 33 said script under the terms of the GPL yourself. Furthermore, any 34 object code linked with perl does not automatically fall under the 35 terms of the GPL, provided such object code only adds definitions 36 of subroutines and variables, and does not otherwise impair the 37 resulting interpreter from executing any standard Perl script. I 38 consider linking in C subroutines in this manner to be the moral 39 equivalent of defining subroutines in the Perl language itself. You 40 may sell such an object file as proprietary provided that you provide 41 or offer to provide the Perl source, as specified by the GNU General 42 Public License. (This is merely an alternate way of specifying input 43 to the program.) You may also sell a binary produced by the dumping of 44 a running Perl script that belongs to you, provided that you provide or 45 offer to provide the Perl source as specified by the GPL. (The 46 fact that a Perl interpreter and your code are in the same binary file 47 is, in this case, a form of mere aggregation.) This is my interpretation 48 of the GPL. If you still have concerns or difficulties understanding 49 my intent, feel free to contact me. Of course, the Artistic License 50 spells all this out for your protection, so you may prefer to use that. 51 52-------------------------------------------------------------------------- 53 54Perl is a language that combines some of the features of C, sed, awk 55and shell. See the manual page for more hype. There are also many Perl 56books available, covering a wide variety of topics, from various publishers. 57See pod/perlbook.pod for more information. 58 59Please read all the directions below before you proceed any further, and 60then follow them carefully. 61 62After you have unpacked your kit, you should have all the files listed 63in MANIFEST. 64 65Installation 66 671) Detailed instructions are in the file "INSTALL", which you should 68read if you are either installing on a system resembling Unix 69or porting perl to another platform. For non-Unix platforms, see the 70corresponding README. 71 722) Read the manual entries before running perl. 73 743) IMPORTANT! Help save the world! Communicate any problems and suggested 75patches to perlbug@perl.org so we can keep the world in sync. 76If you have a problem, there's someone else out there who either has had 77or will have the same problem. It's usually helpful if you send the 78output of the "myconfig" script in the main perl directory. 79 80If you've succeeded in compiling perl, the perlbug script in the "utils" 81subdirectory can be used to help mail in a bug report. 82 83If possible, send in patches such that the patch program will apply them. 84Context diffs are the best, then normal diffs. Don't send ed scripts-- 85I've probably changed my copy since the version you have. 86 87The latest versions of perl are always available on the various CPAN 88(Comprehensive Perl Archive Network) sites around the world. 89See <URL:http://www.perl.com/CPAN/src/>. 90 91 92Just a personal note: I want you to know that I create nice things like this 93because it pleases the Author of my story. If this bothers you, then your 94notion of Authorship needs some revision. But you can use perl anyway. :-) 95 96 The author. 97