(http://www.perl.com/language/misc/Artistic.html)
In 1986, Larry Wall was working as a systems administrator for a subsidiary of Burroughs. He was also working on a "secret project for the NSA" which was to synchronize and report on data between computer systems in Santa Monica, CA, and Paoli, PA. Nothing existed at the time to do this very complex task, so Larry had to 'hack' something new together. He called the resulting scripting language Perl -- the Practical Extraction and Reporting Language.
In October 1987, after deciding it was easier to apologize to the NSA for releasing the code he had developed for them instead of seeking their permission (which he knew he would not get anyway), Larry Wall published version 1.0 of his new Perl language to the comp.sources.misc newsgroup under a basic Free Software copyright license he had devised. The development and growth of the language progressed quickly after that, and in 1989 changed the licensing terms to the much better written and enforceable GNU GPL.
History: However, the GPL had it's own problems. Because it is what Microsoft has recently termed "a viral nature" (meaning anything incorporating GPL code must become GPL itself with no exceptions) and did not make any attempts to keep the original developers "in the loop" (meaning someone else could easily come along and take the project for themselves), businesses were reluctant to use Perl for their projects in fear of what they would be forced to do by the GPL. True, for simply programming in Perl they did not need to worry, but if they ever wanted to compile parts of the Perl interpreter into their finished products, they would be forced to release it as GPL as well. Therefore Larry Wall created a more business-friendly license to appease these interests for Perl 4.0 in March of 1991. He named it the 'Artistic License'. He decided to dual-license instead of replacing the GPL in a clever attempt to provide the user with more flexibility, since the user would not have to decide which license they are using it under until (if) they are taken to court.
Although the OAL was intended to be as 'solid' and enforeacable as the GPL, it was poorly worded and constructed, resulting in a license that many claim would not hold up in a court of law.
This legal weakness has resulted in many variations being created that try their best to follow the OAL's intent, but fixing the many loopholes and vagueness. Licenses that will be discussed and compared in following chapters, while the benefits, disadvantages, and flaws are examined here.
Purpose: The OAL was created to allow the original developer and/or copyright holders of a piece of software to remain an integral director of it's development, while keeping the code free for redistribution and modification. The OAL's Preamble (http://www.perl.com/language/misc/Artistic.html) states:
...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 was intended to make Perl more business-friendly, as Larry Wall states in "Uncultured Perl" [1]:
...business people needed a different set of assurances, and so I wrote the Artistic License to reassure them.
This attitude is still recognized by many, as Frank Hecker writes in his essay "Setting Up Shop: The Business of Open-Source Software" (http://www.openresources.com/documents/setting-up-shop):
The Artistic License is perhaps best thought of an attempt to create an open-source license that eliminates or mitigates the more controversial aspects of the GPL.
Dual-Licensing: In almost all instances of the OAL, especially with Perl, it is used inside of what is called a 'dual-licensing model', specifically with the GPL. This is done because they do not need to choose between the OAL or the GPL until they need to litigate a position. This has never been tested in court, so it is not known how defendable of a tactic this is. Larry Wall explains (http://www.linux-mag.com/1999-10/uncultured_03.html):
The really brilliant part was that I didn't require people to state which license they were distributing under, so nobody had to publicly commit to one or the other. In sociological terms, nobody had to lose face, or cause anyone else to lose face. Most everyone chose to read whichever license they preferred, and to ignore the other. That's how Perl used psychology to subvert the license wars...
Exemptions from Open Sourcing: Like the GPL, modifications made to code covered by the OAL must be released to the world also as Open Source. And also like the GPL, there is the exception of not having to open source the modification as long as it is not published (actually, this is really a feature of copyright law in general, which no copyright license can control). However, unlike the GPL, there is the additional exception that as long as all conflict with the unmodified software (such as name and brand, installed location, etc.) is removed, it may be published under a different license as long as all other requirements from the OAL are satisfied.
Embedding: The OAL allows for the software to be embedded or invisibly incorporated into other third party works, even proprietary ones, such as front-ends and aggregate programs. Note the GPL does not without forcing the software to also become GPL.
Output Coverage: The OAL does not force output generated by the software that contains embedded code fragments from the software, such as some source analyzing software, to be covered by the license as well. This is probably in response to the GPL, which considers all such output to be covered by the GPL.
Non-enforceability: The OAL is generally considered to be weak from a legal standpoint. Richard Stallman, founder and leader of the Free Software Foundation and creator of the GNU GPL (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html):
We cannot say that this is a free software license because it is too vague; some passages are too clever for their own good, and their meaning is not clear.
However, Larry Wall intended the OAL to be vague and not be concerned with containing rock-solid phrasing. He did this to ...
Interpreter Assumptions: Sections 5 and 7 of the OAL seem to assume the software being covered is a software interpreter, so is not as general as it should be and allows it's Perl heritage to restrict it too much.
Aggregation Prevention: Even the Open Source Initiative recognizes a flaw with the OAL, about aggregating the software into a package with other third party softwares, and included a clause in their Open Source Definition just to address it, as a 1999 Linux Magazine article explains (http://www.linux-mag.com/1999-07/opensource_03.html):
The "aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources" was intended to fit a loophole in the Artistic License, a rather sloppy license in my opinion, originally designed for PERL.