The GPL and you

[Daniel Isacc Walker <dwalker@cats.ucsc.edu>]

(Sorry Rick , I'm lazy..)


        I made a PHP extension for the talkfilters library. It's not a big
achievement, it's maybe 100-200 lines of code .. I've run into a license
problem . PHP is under the PHP license and the talkfilters library is
under the GPL . What this means is that my software is automatically GPL'd
even though it has no GPL'd source in it. The GPL doesn't distinguish
between linking and directly copying and pasting source code, or at least
not from my perspective.

        That's fine with me, I'm not concerned about this software's
license. The problem is that , with my understanding, because my code gets
incorporated directly into PHP that means that PHP automatically becomes
GPL'd. Even if I made some kind of external module for PHP, PHP would
still need to be GPL'd. Of course, PHP isn't going to switch to the GPL,
or it's doubtful I can convince them to.

        So I tried to get the talkfilters developer to switch to the LGPL
, but he's one of those "I don't understand the GPL but it's
good" Nazis (He doesn't listen to reason.). So I have a kind of
fundamental problem. I have to release the source, but no one can use it
(?) or they can but they can't tell anyone. Actually, I don't really
know.. I feel compelled to release it. I wrote it so it could be released,
but I'm hesitant because of this whole license issue.

        I shouldn't have written anything, I suppose. Is that the power
of the GPL? The GPL has the power to stop open source developers from
developing. That doesn't make any sense to me. I like the idea of the
GPL, but maybe we need to be a little more pragmatic. Or maybe people
need to be educated with respect to the GPL. The GPL isn't always the
best license.


                                Daniel Walker