Re: Clarification regarding PHP License and DFSG status
On 12/28/05, Charles Fry <debian@frogcircus.org> wrote:
> Pierre,
>
> There has been some ongoing discussion about the new PHP License on
> debian-legal, which you can read at:
>
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/12/threads.html#00025
>
> To summarize, there are still concerns that certain clauses remain
> problematic, especially clauses 3 and 4:
>
> 3. The name "PHP" must not be used to endorse or promote products
> derived from this software without prior written permission. For
> written permission, please contact group@php.net.
>
> 4. Products derived from this software may not be called "PHP", nor
> may "PHP" appear in their name, without prior written permission from
> group@php.net. You may indicate that your software works in
> conjunction with PHP by saying "Foo for PHP" instead of calling it
> "PHP Foo" or "phpfoo"
>
> While you may not fully agree with some of the specific threads above,
> it should be clear that it is a big stretch to apply clauses 3 and 4 to
> software other than PHP itself.
>
> Given this, I would like to once again suggest that the Pear Group
> consider removing the PHP License from their list of accepted licenses.
> As previously discussed, existing projects may take time to be
> relicensed, but I see no reason to allow new Pear projects to use the
> PHP License (which developers may blindly accept as the PHP default).
We can only recommand to do not use it for pear.
> If you have strong feelings to the contrary, I would be most interested
> in hearing them. My hope is that in the long term we will be able to
> come to a solution that allows Debian to freely distribute the bulk of
> the Pear projects.
But I somehow miss the point here, as all softwares using the PHP
License will only be available through php.net, the legal issues
having been solved, what is the current stopping point? Besides these
clauses, they were already reported as non free but in no way illegal.
I mean it is the reason why PHP is not GPL compatible but it does not
make the PHP license illegal, or useless for packages available under
the php.net umbrella. Or am I missing something?
--Pierre
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