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Re: PHP License for PHP Group packages



On Sat, Feb 11, 2006 at 07:03:17AM -0500, Glenn Maynard wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 11, 2006 at 03:33:42AM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote:
> > > "THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE PHP DEVELOPMENT TEAM ``AS IS'' AND "
> > > is also wrong for anything which is not from the PHP Team.

> > Agreed; this license is still not suitable for software that doesn't come
> > from the PHP Group.

> Non-free unsuitable or just unsuitable?  A lot of non-BSD software uses the
> BSD license's "THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS"
> disclaimer, even software with nothing provided by THE REGENTS.  It's a
> mistake, claiming someone contributed to something when they didn't, though
> it's a mistake Debian encourages, given that any package using a common-
> licenses/BSD symlink has this problem ...

> (The disclaimers, incidentally, are otherwise identical, except for the odd
> change of "EXPRESS" to "EXPRESSED".)

> Is it the lack of "AND CONTRIBUTORS" that's the problem?  The only difference
> I might guess is that the PHP license's version may not disclaim warranty
> for some people, but they're free not to do that, right?  (But probably
> didn't intend not to ...)

Yes, after revisiting this I think you're right.  The terms of their
warranty disclaimer certainly don't make it non-free.  So I guess the only
real remaining issue is the pseudo-trademark problem, which is equally an
issue for any software that isn't itself named "PHP" regardless of who the
upstream is, and also an issue for software that *is* named "PHP", though to
a slightly lesser degree.

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
vorlon@debian.org                                   http://www.debian.org/

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