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1
2 Perl Kit, Version 5
3
4 Copyright (C) 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999,
5 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 by Larry Wall and others
6
7 All rights reserved.
8
9 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
10 it under the terms of either:
11
12 a) the GNU General Public License as published by the Free
13 Software Foundation; either version 1, or (at your option) any
14 later version, or
15
16 b) the "Artistic License" which comes with this Kit.
17
18 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
19 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
20 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See either
21 the GNU General Public License or the Artistic License for more details.
22
23 You should have received a copy of the Artistic License with this
24 Kit, in the file named "Artistic". If not, I'll be glad to provide one.
25
26 You should also have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
27 along with this program in the file named "Copying". If not, write to the
28 Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA
29 02111-1307, USA or visit their web page on the internet at
30 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html.
31
32 For those of you that choose to use the GNU General Public License,
33 my interpretation of the GNU General Public License is that no Perl
34 script falls under the terms of the GPL unless you explicitly put
35 said script under the terms of the GPL yourself. Furthermore, any
36 object code linked with perl does not automatically fall under the
37 terms of the GPL, provided such object code only adds definitions
38 of subroutines and variables, and does not otherwise impair the
39 resulting interpreter from executing any standard Perl script. I
40 consider linking in C subroutines in this manner to be the moral
41 equivalent of defining subroutines in the Perl language itself. You
42 may sell such an object file as proprietary provided that you provide
43 or offer to provide the Perl source, as specified by the GNU General
44 Public License. (This is merely an alternate way of specifying input
45 to the program.) You may also sell a binary produced by the dumping of
46 a running Perl script that belongs to you, provided that you provide or
47 offer to provide the Perl source as specified by the GPL. (The
48 fact that a Perl interpreter and your code are in the same binary file
49 is, in this case, a form of mere aggregation.) This is my interpretation
50 of the GPL. If you still have concerns or difficulties understanding
51 my intent, feel free to contact me. Of course, the Artistic License
52 spells all this out for your protection, so you may prefer to use that.
53
54--------------------------------------------------------------------------
55
56Perl is a language that combines some of the features of C, sed, awk
57and shell. See the manual page for more hype. There are also many Perl
58books available, covering a wide variety of topics, from various publishers.
59See pod/perlbook.pod for more information.
60
61Please read all the directions below before you proceed any further, and
62then follow them carefully.
63
64Installation
65
661) Detailed instructions are in the file "INSTALL", which you should
67read if you are either installing on a system resembling Unix
68or porting perl to another platform. For non-Unix platforms, see the
69corresponding README.
70
712) Read the manual entries before running perl.
72
733) IMPORTANT! Help save the world! Communicate any problems and suggested
74patches to perlbug@perl.org so we can keep the world in sync.
75If you have a problem, there's someone else out there who either has had
76or will have the same problem. See the section on "Reporting Problems"
77in the INSTALL file.
78
79The latest versions of perl are always available on the various CPAN
80(Comprehensive Perl Archive Network) sites around the world.
81See http://www.cpan.org/src/ .
82
83
84Just a personal note: I want you to know that I create nice things like this
85because it pleases the Author of my story. If this bothers you, then your
86notion of Authorship needs some revision. But you can use perl anyway. :-)
87
88 The author.