Re: Clarification regarding PHP License and DFSG status
On Fri, Nov 25, 2005 at 07:23:24PM +0000, Måns Rullgård wrote:
> >>> > Do you think that this licence does not require a developer
> >>> > of a modified package (other than PHP) to lie by saying
> >>> > "This product includes PHP software"?
> >>>
> >>> Perhaps the PHP folks subscribe to the view that PHP scripts are
> >>> derivative works of PHP.
> >>
> >> Ye ghods, I'd hope not. That would be similar to believing that this
> >> message is a derivative of the English Grammar manual I read in school.
> >
> > Or that all non-trivial Emacs Lisp code must be licensed under the
> > GPL. This position is not *that* unusual...
>
> Not being unusual doesn't make it sensible or correct.
Just to take a guess at where this strange claim might have originated:
The FSF (from what I understand) claims that binaries linked against GPL
libraries are derivative works of the library, because the resulting binary
has pieces of the GPL software in it. This isn't obviously true with C
libraries, which has led to a lot of debate around the topic, but the claim
isn't entirely unreasonable.
They do not claim (again, AFAIK) that the *source* of the program using it
is a derivative work of the library it uses.
"PHP scripts are derivative works of PHP" sounds like someone misinterpreted
the FSF's claims, and ended up believing that the source of a program is a
derivative work of its libraries. (That, unlike the FSF's claims, seems
to make very little reasonable sense.)
--
Glenn Maynard
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