On Mon, 17 Oct 2005 20:13:05 -0700 Jeremy T. Bouse wrote: > Let me preface with saying I am not subscribed to debian-legal so > please inclusion of Cc: to me directly would be appreciated. OK, done. > > I am inquiring further clarification on the PHP license (I'm > including v2.2 and v3.0) as to whether or not they qualify as DFSG. I > ask this as most all PEAR modules (similar to Perl's CPAN) appear to > be licensed under this license. I know it is listed with the Open > Source Initiative as an open source license but I've long since > learned that doesn't mean Debian accepts everything OSI does. Right. > > If a consensus on this could be reached it would be appreciated as > if PEAR modules licensed under the PHP license are non-DFSG that means > most, if not all, PEAR modules would be non-free at best and with many > PHP applications making use of PEAR modules would mean moving them > from main to contrib or non-free themselves. Adopting the PHP license for anything that is not PHP itself is an issue that was discussed on this list back in August. Actually the thread (titled "[PEAR-DEV] PHP License") was a giant crosspost on several lists (debian-legal, debian-webapps and various pear-*@*php.net). The recommendation was to avoid using the PHP license for PEAR modules and relicense them under a 2-clause BSD license. There's even a bug about this: http://pear.php.net/bugs/bug.php?id=5473 (but take into account that I haven't yet found the time to read it...) [php-license-v2_02.txt text/plain (3826 bytes)] > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > The PHP License, version 2.02 > Copyright (c) 1999 - 2002 The PHP Group. All rights reserved. > -------------------------------------------------------------------- [...] > 3. The name "PHP" must not be used to endorse or promote products > derived from this software without prior permission from the > PHP Group. This does not apply to add-on libraries or tools > that work in conjunction with PHP. In such a case the PHP > name may be used to indicate that the product supports PHP. This is a sort of name-change clause (permitted by DFSG#4) *if* the license is applied to PHP itself. It's really inappropriate for anything that is *not* PHP itself (especially when the copyright holder is not the PHP Group). [...] > 5. Redistributions of any form whatsoever must retain the following > acknowledgment: > "This product includes PHP, freely available from > http://www.php.net/". This clause forces redistributors to lie, *if* the license is applied to anything but PHP itself. OK for PHP itself, non-free for anything else. > > 6. The software incorporates the Zend Engine, a product of Zend > Technologies, Ltd. ("Zend"). This is not true for anything that does not actually include the Zend Engine! > The Zend Engine is licensed to the > PHP Association (pursuant to a grant from Zend that can be > found at http://www.php.net/license/ZendGrant/) for > distribution to you under this license agreement, only as a > part of PHP. In the event that you separate the Zend Engine > (or any portion thereof) from the rest of the software, or > modify the Zend Engine, or any portion thereof, your use of the > separated or modified Zend Engine software shall not be governed > by this license, and instead shall be governed by the license > set forth at http://www.zend.com/license/ZendLicense/. This fails DFSG#3, as I'm not able to extract and/or modify the Zend Engine, thus creating a derivative work of PHP+Zend and distribute the result under the same terms as the license of the original software. > > > > THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE PHP DEVELOPMENT TEAM ``AS IS'' True when we are talking about PHP itself. False for anything that is not provided by the PHP development team... [...] > This software consists of voluntary contributions made by many > individuals on behalf of the PHP Group. Again false when applied to software that is not developed by the PHP Group. [php-license-v3_0.txt text/plain (3359 bytes)] > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > The PHP License, version 3.0 > Copyright (c) 1999 - 2005 The PHP Group. All rights reserved. > -------------------------------------------------------------------- [...] > 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. Again OK for PHP itself, inappropriate for anything else. > > 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" When the license is applied to PHP itself, this starts as a name-change clause, but then goes beyond and forbids an entire class of names for derived works (any name having "PHP" as a substring, minus some exceptions). This is overreaching, IMO, and makes the clause non-free. This gets even worse when applied to anything that is not PHP itself. [...] > 6. Redistributions of any form whatsoever must retain the following > acknowledgment: > "This product includes PHP, freely available from > <http://www.php.net/>". Again, this forces redistributors to lie, when applied to anything but PHP itself. > > THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE PHP DEVELOPMENT TEAM ``AS IS'' Once again false for anything not provided by the PHP development team. [...] > This software consists of voluntary contributions made by many > individuals on behalf of the PHP Group. Again... [...] > This product includes the Zend Engine, freely available at > <http://www.zend.com>. Again... -- :-( This Universe is buggy! Where's the Creator's BTS? ;-) ...................................................................... Francesco Poli GnuPG Key ID = DD6DFCF4 Key fingerprint = C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4
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