Re: Sources licensed under PHP License and not being PHP are not distributable
On Thu, Jun 26, 2014, at 13:09, Dimitri John Ledkov wrote:
> On 26 June 2014 12:00, Ondřej Surý <ondrej@sury.org> wrote:
> >
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > I should have done this earlier before cloning the bugs, so here's
> > some more background on the bugs filled.
> >
> > I did have a quite long and extensive chat with FTP Masters
> > and our conclusion was that PHP License (any version) is
> > suitable only for software that comes directly from "PHP Group",
> > that basically means only PHP (src:php5) itself.
> >
>
> Can ftp-masters or you summarise the logic argumentation behind the
> above conclusion?
https://ftp-master.debian.org/REJECT-FAQ.html
You have a PHP add-on package (any php script/"app"/thing, not PHP
itself) and it's licensed only under the standard PHP license. That
license, up to the 3.x which is actually out, is not really usable for
anything else than PHP itself. I've mailed our -legal list about that
and got only one response, which basically supported my view on this.
Basically this license talks only about PHP, the PHP Group, and includes
Zend Engine, so its not applicable to anything else. And even worse,
older versions include the nice ad-clause.
One good solution here is to suggest a license change to your upstream,
as they clearly wanted a free one. LGPL or BSD seems to be what they
want.
And https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/08/msg00128.html
I tried to raise the same argument again:
https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2014/06/msg00000.html
> > We have several options to do here:
> >
> > 1. Ask upstream to re-license the software to different free license
> > - BSD or MIT/Expat is the closest one.
> >
> > 2. Show that the software in question does come from "PHP Group",
> > f.e. software based on src:php5 sources. Most notable example is
> > src:php-json which is copy of ext/json/ adapted to libjson-c-dev
> > instead of the included JSON-IS-EVIL library.
> >
> > 3. We remove the source packages from Debian.
> >
> > One more note: PHP is *not* compatible with GPL[1]. If you have
> > sources that combine PHP-licensed source with GPL-licenced
> > source the result is not distributable. That includes linking GPL
> > library to PHP licenced source (e.g. libreadline as most notable
> > example of GPL library).
> >
> > While doing the copyright research I have found two such examples
> > and Ansgar was that kind that he filled: #752625 and #752627
> >
> > Full list of bugs filled under this:
> > https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=ondrej%40debian.org&tag=php-license-3.01
> >
> > If you feel to dispute this please take your *well-formed* and
> > *well-thought*
> > arguments to debian-legal.
> >
>
> Why debian-legal, and not here / with you & ftp-masters ?
The initial conclusion came from debian-legal, and I think it's
futile to discuss that with ftp-masters when I already done that.
And as you can see in the initial conversation in the bug report
I was against the removal, but in the end they have convinced
me that licensing anything not-being-PHP under PHP License
is just no-goer.
O.
--
Ondřej Surý <ondrej@sury.org>
Knot DNS (https://www.knot-dns.cz/) – a high-performance DNS server
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