On Wed, 12 Apr 2006 16:59:36 -0400 Charles Fry wrote:
> > As you may have read in the thread you're referring to (I don't know
> > which of them, as there are quite several), I don't agree.
> > I believe that PHP license version 3.01 does not comply
> > with the DFSG, even when applied to PHP itself or to PHP Group
> > software. The problematic clause is #4.
> >
> > Moreover, when the license is applied to anything else (that is to
> > say, software not provided by the PHP Group), a bunch of additional
> > issues appear.
> >
> > Unfortunately, it seems that really few people here are able to see
> > what I perceive as a clear non-freeness.
>
> As previously mentioned on the list, there are and have been other
> packages in Debian with similar clauses.
This is not an argument.
Previous errors should not be taken as a justification for their
reiteration.
Just try and imagine the following BTS interaction between a user and
the maintainer of package foo:
James R. User> there's a buffer overflow vulnerability in foo
John F. Maintainer> there are and have been other packages in Debian
with similar vulnerabilities, so that must be OK, tag wontfix
>
> > Moreover the result of the discussions seems to be that several bugs
> > were *closed*, while the license is still unfixed... :-(((
>
> If you want to have a severe bug on this licensing issue, I invite you
> to open it with PHP itself.
Filing a serious bug against package php[345] is unlikely to produce
significant results, unless I can convince other debian-legal regulars
that there actually is a problem.
If I filed a bug report now, the php package maintainer would probably
come to debian-legal to check whether my claims are backed by some
consensus on the list and/or review previous discussions about the
topic: he would probably close the bug.
Consequently, I think that I must first gain consensus on the list and
*only then* file a serious bug against php[345] and hope the issue can
be fixed by upstream.
Remember that PHP License has an auto-upgrade clause, so if the PHP
Group fixes the license (with a new version, say 3.02 or 4.0) every
package that is affected by this issue would instantly become DFSG-free.
Fix once, Free everywhere!
> As long as PHP is allowed to remain
> ininhibited in Debian, there is no arguement for removing other PHP
> Group software that uses the same license.
As I repeatedly stated, the issue I'm pointing out holds for both PHP
itself and other PHP Group software.
I'm not trying to claim that PHP is OK, while other PHP Group software
is not.
--
:-( This Universe is buggy! Where's the Creator's BTS? ;-)
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