perlpolicy man page on OpenBSD

Man page or keyword search:  
man Server   11362 pages
apropos Keyword Search (all sections)
Output format
OpenBSD logo
[printable version]

PERLPOLICY(1)	       Perl Programmers Reference Guide		 PERLPOLICY(1)

NAME
       perlpolicy - Various and sundry policies and commitments related to the
       perl core

DESCRIPTION
       This document is the master document which records all written policies
       about how the Perl 5 Porters collectively develop and maintain the Perl
       core.

BACKWARD COMPATIBILITY AND DEPRECATION
       Our community has a long-held belief that backward-compatibility is a
       virtue, even when the functionality in question is a design flaw.

       We would all love to unmake some mistakes we've made over the past
       decades.	 Living with every design error we've ever made can lead to
       painful stagnation.  Unwinding our mistakes is very, very difficult.
       Doing so without actively harming our users is nearly impossible.

       Lately, ignoring or actively opposing compatibility with earlier
       versions of Perl has come into vogue.  Sometimes, a change is proposed
       which wants to usurp syntax which previously had another meaning.
       Sometimes, a change wants to improve previously-crazy semantics.

       Down this road lies madness.

       Requiring end-user programmers to change just a few language
       constructs, even language constructs which no well-educated developer
       would ever intentionally use is tantamount to saying "you should not
       upgrade to a new release of Perl unless you have 100% test coverage and
       can do a full manual audit of your codebase."  If we were to have tools
       capable of reliably upgrading Perl source code from one version of Perl
       to another, this concern could be significantly mitigated.

       We want to ensure that Perl continues to grow and flourish in the
       coming years and decades, but not at the expense of our user community.

       Existing syntax and semantics should only be marked for destruction in
       very limited circumstances.  If a given language feature's continued
       inclusion in the language will cause significant harm to the language
       or prevent us from making needed changes to the runtime, then it may be
       considered for deprecation.

       Any language change which breaks backward-compatibility should be able
       to be enabled or disabled lexically.  Unless code at a given scope
       declares that it wants the new behavior, that new behavior should be
       disabled.  Which backward-incompatible changes are controlled
       implicitly by a 'use v5.x.y' is a decision which should be made by the
       pumpking in consultation with the community.

       When a backward-incompatible change can't be toggled lexically, the
       decision to change the language must be considered very, very
       carefully.  If it's possible to move the old syntax or semantics out of
       the core language and into XS-land, that XS module should be enabled by
       default unless the user declares that they want a newer revision of
       Perl.

       Historically, we've held ourselves to a far higher standard than
       backward-compatibility O- bugward-compatibility.	 Any accident of
       implementation or unintentional side-effect of running some bit of code
       has been considered to be a feature of the language to be defended with
       the same zeal as any other feature or functionality.  No matter how
       frustrating these unintentional features may be to us as we continue to
       improve Perl, these unintentional features often deserve our
       protection.  It is very important that existing software written in
       Perl continue to work correctly.	 If end-user developers have adopted a
       bug as a feature, we need to treat it as such.

       New syntax and semantics which don't break existing language constructs
       and syntax have a much lower bar.  They merely need to prove themselves
       to be useful, elegant, well designed and well tested.

   Terminology
       To make sure we're talking about the same thing when we discuss the
       removal of features or functionality from the Perl core, we have
       specific definitions for a few words and phrases.

       experimental
	   If something in the Perl core is marked as experimental, we may
	   change its behaviour, deprecate or remove it without notice. While
	   we'll always do our best to smooth the transition path for users of
	   experimental features, you should contact the perl5-porters
	   mailinglist if you find an experimental feature useful and want to
	   help shape its future.

       deprecated
	   If something in the Perl core is marked as deprecated, we may
	   remove it from thecore in the next stable release series, though we
	   may not. As of Perl 5.12, deprecated features and modules warn the
	   user as they're used.  If you use a deprecated feature and believe
	   that its removal from the Perl core would be a mistake, please
	   contact the perl5-porters mailinglist and plead your case.  We
	   don't deprecate things without a good reason, but sometimes there's
	   a counterargument we haven't considered.  Historically, we did not
	   distinguish between "deprecated" and "discouraged" features.

       discouraged
	   From time to time, we may mark language constructs and features
	   which we consider to have been mistakes as discouraged.
	   Discouraged features aren't candidates for removal in the next
	   major release series, but we may later deprecate them if they're
	   found to stand in the way of a significant improvement to the core.

       removed
	   Once a feature, construct or module has been marked as deprecated
	   for a stable release cycle, we may remove it from the core.
	   Unsurprisingly, we say we've removed these things.

MAINTENANCE BRANCHES
       o   New releases of maint should contain as few changes as possible.
	   If there is any question about whether a given patch might merit
	   inclusion in a maint release, then it almost certainly should not
	   be included.

       o   Portability fixes, such as changes to Configure and the files in
	   hints/ are acceptable. Ports of Perl to a new platform,
	   architecture or OS release that involve changes to the
	   implementation are NOT acceptable.

       o   Documentation updates are acceptable.

       o   Patches that add new warnings or errors or deprecate features are
	   not acceptable.

       o   Patches that fix crashing bugs that do not otherwise change Perl's
	   functionality or negatively impact performance are acceptable.

       o   Patches that fix CVEs or security issues are acceptable, but should
	   be run through the perl5-security-report@perl.org mailing list
	   rather than applied directly.

       o   Updates to dual-life modules should consist of minimal patches to
	   fix crashing or security issues (as above).

       o   New versions of dual-life modules should NOT be imported into
	   maint.  Those belong in the next stable series.

       o   Patches that add or remove features are not acceptable.

       o   Patches that break binary compatibility are not acceptable.
	   (Please talk to a pumpking.)

   Getting changes into a maint branch
       Historically, only the pumpking cherry-picked changes from bleadperl
       into maintperl.	This has...scaling problems.  At the same time,
       maintenance branches of stable versions of Perl need to be treated with
       great care. To that end, we're going to try out a new process for
       maint-5.12.

       Any committer may cherry-pick any commit from blead to maint-5.12 if
       they send mail to perl5-porters announcing their intent to cherry-pick
       a specific commit along with a rationale for doing so and at least two
       other committers respond to the list giving their assent. (This policy
       applies to current and former pumpkings, as well as other committers.)

CONTRIBUTED MODULES
   A Social Contract about Artistic Control
       What follows is a statement about artistic control, defined as the
       ability of authors of packages to guide the future of their code and
       maintain control over their work.  It is a recognition that authors
       should have control over their work, and that it is a responsibility of
       the rest of the Perl community to ensure that they retain this control.
       It is an attempt to document the standards to which we, as Perl
       developers, intend to hold ourselves.  It is an attempt to write down
       rough guidelines about the respect we owe each other as Perl
       developers.

       This statement is not a legal contract.	This statement is not a legal
       document in any way, shape, or form.  Perl is distributed under the GNU
       Public License and under the Artistic License; those are the precise
       legal terms.  This statement isn't about the law or licenses.  It's
       about community, mutual respect, trust, and good-faith cooperation.

       We recognize that the Perl core, defined as the software distributed
       with the heart of Perl itself, is a joint project on the part of all of
       us.  From time to time, a script, module, or set of modules (hereafter
       referred to simply as a "module") will prove so widely useful and/or so
       integral to the correct functioning of Perl itself that it should be
       distributed with Perl core.  This should never be done without the
       author's explicit consent, and a clear recognition on all parts that
       this means the module is being distributed under the same terms as Perl
       itself.	A module author should realize that inclusion of a module into
       the Perl core will necessarily mean some loss of control over it, since
       changes may occasionally have to be made on short notice or for
       consistency with the rest of Perl.

       Once a module has been included in the Perl core, however, everyone
       involved in maintaining Perl should be aware that the module is still
       the property of the original author unless the original author
       explicitly gives up their ownership of it.  In particular:

       o   The version of the module in the core should still be considered
	   the work of the original author.  All patches, bug reports, and so
	   forth should be fed back to them.  Their development directions
	   should be respected whenever possible.

       o   Patches may be applied by the pumpkin holder without the explicit
	   cooperation of the module author if and only if they are very
	   minor, time-critical in some fashion (such as urgent security
	   fixes), or if the module author cannot be reached.  Those patches
	   must still be given back to the author when possible, and if the
	   author decides on an alternate fix in their version, that fix
	   should be strongly preferred unless there is a serious problem with
	   it.	Any changes not endorsed by the author should be marked as
	   such, and the contributor of the change acknowledged.

       o   The version of the module distributed with Perl should, whenever
	   possible, be the latest version of the module as distributed by the
	   author (the latest non-beta version in the case of public Perl
	   releases), although the pumpkin holder may hold off on upgrading
	   the version of the module distributed with Perl to the latest
	   version until the latest version has had sufficient testing.

       In other words, the author of a module should be considered to have
       final say on modifications to their module whenever possible (bearing
       in mind that it's expected that everyone involved will work together
       and arrive at reasonable compromises when there are disagreements).

       As a last resort, however:

       If the author's vision of the future of their module is sufficiently
       different from the vision of the pumpkin holder and perl5-porters as a
       whole so as to cause serious problems for Perl, the pumpkin holder may
       choose to formally fork the version of the module in the core from the
       one maintained by the author.  This should not be done lightly and
       should always if at all possible be done only after direct input from
       Larry.  If this is done, it must then be made explicit in the module as
       distributed with Perl core that it is a forked version and that while
       it is based on the original author's work, it is no longer maintained
       by them.	 This must be noted in both the documentation and in the
       comments in the source of the module.

       Again, this should be a last resort only.  Ideally, this should never
       happen, and every possible effort at cooperation and compromise should
       be made before doing this.  If it does prove necessary to fork a module
       for the overall health of Perl, proper credit must be given to the
       original author in perpetuity and the decision should be constantly
       re-evaluated to see if a remerging of the two branches is possible down
       the road.

       In all dealings with contributed modules, everyone maintaining Perl
       should keep in mind that the code belongs to the original author, that
       they may not be on perl5-porters at any given time, and that a patch is
       not official unless it has been integrated into the author's copy of
       the module.  To aid with this, and with points #1, #2, and #3 above,
       contact information for the authors of all contributed modules should
       be kept with the Perl distribution.

       Finally, the Perl community as a whole recognizes that respect for
       ownership of code, respect for artistic control, proper credit, and
       active effort to prevent unintentional code skew or communication gaps
       is vital to the health of the community and Perl itself.	 Members of a
       community should not normally have to resort to rules and laws to deal
       with each other, and this document, although it contains rules so as to
       be clear, is about an attitude and general approach.  The first step in
       any dispute should be open communication, respect for opposing views,
       and an attempt at a compromise.	In nearly every circumstance nothing
       more will be necessary, and certainly no more drastic measure should be
       used until every avenue of communication and discussion has failed.

CREDITS
       Social Contract about Contributed Modules originally by Russ Allbery
       <rra@stanford.edu> and the perl5-porters.

perl v5.12.2						    September 28, 2010
[top]

List of man pages available for OpenBSD

Copyright (c) for man pages and the logo by the respective OS vendor.

For those who want to learn more, the polarhome community provides shell access and support.

[legal] [privacy] [GNU] [policy] [cookies] [netiquette] [sponsors] [FAQ]
Tweet
Polarhome, production since 1999.
Member of Polarhome portal.
Based on Fawad Halim's script.
....................................................................
Vote for polarhome
Free Shell Accounts :: the biggest list on the net