Pierre,
There has been some ongoing discussion about the new PHP License on
debian-legal, which you can read at:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/12/threads.html#00025
To summarize, there are still concerns that certain clauses remain
problematic, especially clauses 3 and 4:
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.
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"
While you may not fully agree with some of the specific threads above,
it should be clear that it is a big stretch to apply clauses 3 and 4 to
software other than PHP itself.
Given this, I would like to once again suggest that the Pear Group
consider removing the PHP License from their list of accepted licenses.
As previously discussed, existing projects may take time to be
relicensed, but I see no reason to allow new Pear projects to use the
PHP License (which developers may blindly accept as the PHP default).
If you have strong feelings to the contrary, I would be most interested
in hearing them. My hope is that in the long term we will be able to
come to a solution that allows Debian to freely distribute the bulk of
the Pear projects.
cheers,
Charles
-----Original Message-----
> From: Pierre <pierre.dev@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: Clarification regarding PHP License and DFSG status
> Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 00:01:08 +0100
> To: Charles Fry <debian@frogcircus.org>
> Cc: Arnoud Engelfriet <arnoud@engelfriet.net>,
> debian-legal@lists.debian.org
> Old-Return-Path: <pierre.dev@gmail.com>
>
> On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 16:39:52 -0500
> Charles Fry <debian@frogcircus.org> wrote:
>
> > [Pierre, note the note for you at the bottom.]
>
> > "PHP software" should NOT be understood as "a piece of software in the
> > PHP language" as you propose, but rather as software distributed by
> > the PHP Group at http://www.php.net/software/.
> >
> > In other words, this license is still not acceptable for software that
> > is not available from the PHP Group at http://www.php.net/software/.
>
> The sentence was changed to reflect facts, a software contains PHP
> Softwares, which are available from the url you gave (given that you
> have to click).
>
> > > Perhaps it would be better to have the disclaimer talk about
> > > the authors instead of the PHP development team? Right now,
> > > only the PHP team gets the benefit of the disclaimer, not the
> > > authors of the software.
> > >
> > > IN NO EVENT SHALL THE PHP DEVELOPMENT TEAM OR ITS CONTRIBUTORS BE
> > > LIABLE FOR ANY ... DAMAGES
> >
> > Good point. I am CCing Pierre on this issue so that he can bring it
> > before the PHP Group.
> >
> > But I don't see this preventing Debian from distributing Pear packages
> > licensed under the new PHP License.
>
>
> Thanks, I hardly discussed those points with Rasmus, Derick and other
> people there. These changes reflect the maximum they will ever do.
> I will not ask more changes, it will bring way too much troubles on my
> back.
>
> Anyway you are right, the license is actually correct. I would love
> to have a better license for php (like the new BSD or a GPL compatible)
> but I doubt that will ever happen, sorry.
>
> I will still try to put a note in the pear manual to encourage the
> usage of other licenses (like bsd or lgpl), people are getting tired to
> "waste" time with legal problems instead of hacking :)
>
> Thanks for your work and keep me informed if there is any other
> troubles,
>
> Cheers,
> --Pierre
--
Shave faster without disaster
Burma-Shave
http://burma-shave.org/jingles/1939/shave_faster_without
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature