Hello everybody,
At Debian we have recently stumbled upon a "hidden"[0] clause[1] in
a source
code file included in PHP since php4. Since this clause is not free
in terms
of the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG)[2] it prevents us
(Debian) from
distributing the php interpreter.
I am thereby asking for your permission to remove the clause; but I
would like
you to give permission to *anybody* and not just Debian, as
otherwise it
would be a violation of the DFSG.
Although Shawn Cokus and Richard J. Wagner stated that it would be
_nice_ to
CC them it would be nice to get an OK by them too.
When replying please send a copy of the message to, at least, the
addresses in
Reply-To.
[0] It was not noticed until a couple of weeks ago by Jan Wagner,
who reported
the problem at http://bugs.debian.org/499471
[1] From php's ext/standard/rand.c:
The original code included the following notice:
When you use this, send an email to: matumoto@math.keio.ac.jp
with an appropriate reference to your work.
It would be nice to CC: rjwagner@writeme.com and
Cokus@math.washington.edu when you write.
[2] http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines
Yours sincerely,
Raphael Geissert