Re: [PECL-DEV] Debian request to change the PHP license for Extensions

On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 11:28 AM, Pierre Joye <pierre.php@gmail.com> wrote:

On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 11:28 AM, Pierre Joye <pierre.php@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 10:39 AM, Ulf Wendel <ulf.wendel@phpdoc.de> wrote:
>> Am 27.06.2014 09:56, schrieb Ferenc Kovacs:
>>> I think they just consider our license troublesome for exts as it seems too
>>> specific for php-src, and they only want to avoid possible license
>>> infringement.
>>
>> Just keep the scope of any possible PHP license change in mind.
>>
>> You got one player, a consumer/redistributor, that developed a hiccup
>> only recently. And, you have many, many other players that arranged
>> themselves with todays PHP license over so many years. Licensing changes
>> affect not only consumers but also all contributors.
>>
>> Any change would make literally hundrets of legal departement happy and
>> evaluate your ideas. Those legal departements begin their analysis on a
>> blank sheet of paper. They will not bother much, if at all, about the
>> input you got from your legal advisor.
>>
>> In a perfect world, you could do some tiny text changes to the license
>> without much hassle. In reality, this is a monster topic. Any rush can
>> cause massive harm.
>
> Amen.
>
> And it cannot be done without asking every single contributor. Let say
> it is an impossible task at this point, or very very hard.

Keeping in mind that the only actual issue we had in the PHP License
was fixed in 3.01.

The existance of 3.01 means that it is possible to update our license (of course other projects are free to stick to an older one if they want as described in clause 5).

I don't want to rush things, I'm just saying that maybe we should consider revisiting/rewording our current license to make it more clear regarding the usage for extensions and stuff.

When comparing http://www.php.net/license/3_0.txt with http://www.php.net/license/3_01.txt I can see that clause 6 was changed from

6. Redistributions of any form whatsoever must retain the following
acknowledgment:
"This product includes PHP, freely available from
<http://www.php.net/>".

6. Redistributions of any form whatsoever must retain the following
acknowledgment:
"This product includes PHP software, freely available from
<http://www.php.net/software/>".

Which is still confusing imo. One interpretation is that we consider the exts as derived work, and this is what we are referring to as includes, but it could be also interpreted, that this project is a php software, distributed through http://www.php.net/software/ implying that you can't use the license if you aren't distributing your software there.

And to tell you the truth, I have never seen this possible interpretation before you mentioned this restriction today.

And the last sentence was changed from

This product includes the Zend Engine, freely available at
<http://www.zend.com>.

to

PHP includes the Zend Engine, freely available at
<http://www.zend.com>.

I guess this was changed to react to the complaints that not every software using the PHP license includes the Zend Engine.

--
Ferenc Kovács
@Tyr43l - http://tyrael.hu