The Artistic (or Perl Artistic) License is named because of its stated intention to allow the initial developer to maintain "artistic" control over the licensed software and derivative works created from it. The Perl License is substantially identical to the Artistic License, but it includes an additional paragraph, which provides another option for commercial distribution.

Developed by Larry Wall in the late 1980s, Perl is a ubiquitous programming language, based on C (among other languages) and is found frequently in UNIX and UNIX-based systems. It is omnipresent on the World Wide Web, with thousands, if not millions, of web sites running combinations of Perl scripts over Apache web servers. Part of Perl's strength as a language is its ability to tie together different programs and languages that were not initially intended to work together.

Because of Perl's ubiquity and because Perl is licensed under both the Artistic License and the GPL, programmers and users are as likely to come across the Perl License as any other open source or free software license except the GPL, BSD, or LGPL. The core, the standard Perl libraries, the optional modules, and the documentation that make up Perl were initiated by Larry Wall but have involved the contributions of thousands of people, making Perl one of the most successful open source projects to date.

Unfortunately, the Artistic License is notoriously vague and confusing. This description and commentary will, hopefully, ...