An overview of the major differences would be nice. Is that available
somewhere?
The Artistic 2.0 notes <http://www.perlfoundation.org/legal/licenses/somewhere?
artistic-2_0-notes.html> walk you through the new license, but they
don't specifically highlight the changes. This will make a nice
addition to the FAQ.
Overall, the terms of the Artistic 2 are the same as the Artistic 1,
though the language has been polished and reorganized to be more
readable and more legally precise. The significant additions are
sections 4(c)(ii) and 13.
Section 4(c)(ii) is what we call the "relicensing" clause, because it
allows you to take a package you received under the Artistic License
and use it under the terms of a copyleft license such as GPL, MPL, or
Apache. This is a significant advantage for downstream licensing
compatibility. If you want to include an Artistic licensed package
in, for example, an MPL package, you can relicense the Artistic
package under the MPL to include it in your package.
Section 13 minimizes the likelihood of patent litigation. We want to
do what we can to promote our users' freedoms, even though some
people might try to take freedoms away from them by using software
patents in unscrupulous ways.
Allison