Hi,
Clint Byrum:
> That's quite the opposite of what I would suggest. Such distributions
> may actually feel that they can withstand any damages that PHP/Zend can
> claim against them, and their brands depend on them taking care of their
> end users, but even if they didn't, they could also absorb any damage
> those users could claim.
>
It is quite obvious that PHP/Zend does not give a flying **** about the way
the license is (mis)used by third parties. Also quite obviously, these
selfsame third parties think the license to be perfectly applicable, will
not change it, and consider us quite strange for even mentioning this.
Where do we go from here? We have three options …
(A) Remove from Debian. Quite frankly, I'd be for this in a heartbeat
if it would make people switch to a saner programming language,
but that's wishful thinking (rewrite Mediawiki in Python??).
Best outcome: some people create a separate apt archive for the PHP
modules we kick out. Worst outcome: a lot of people switch distros
because they need the stuff and we lose contributors, not just users.
(B) Get Upstream (all of them) to change licenses.
My opinion: Fat chance.
(C) Bite the bullet and admit that when everybody else calls a color
"light blue" which we consider to be "cyan", we might as well docuent
that fact instead of trying to convince everybody else that they're
wrong, even if they are, from our PoV. After all, the color stays the
same, no matter what people call it.
By the same token, this license is valid by force of everybody under
the sun considering it to be valid (taking intent and all that into
account). The chance of an author of / contributor to one of these
packages (nobody else has any legal standing to do so) suing us for
distributing this code is … well … I suspect that if you want to get
a lawyer to laugh, you might as well ask them.
So. Bottom line: Can we agree to compromise on some modification of
(C) informally, or is a GR required?
Disclaimer: IANAL.
--
-- Matthias Urlichs
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