Re: [PHP-QA] Debian and the PHP license

[Walter Landry <wlandry@caltech.edu>]

Ferenc Kovacs <tyra3l@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've find it a bit disturbing, that ftpmasters can make a decision on legal
> grounds(which is the probably the highest priority for debian as far as I'm
> concerned), without any backing from debian-legal

debian-legal has no authority to decide anything.  It is just a
mailing list.  We can discuss things here day and night and
ftp-masters can ignore it.

With that said, debian-legal can be useful when issues are clear-cut.
For example, if someone asks if the Apache 2.0 license is compatible
with the GPL (no for GPL 2.0, yes for GPL 3.0).  Think of debian-legal
as the secretary for ftp-masters.  We can sometimes divine what they
are thinking, but the final word belongs to ftp-masters.

In any case, in the interest of making this email constructive, my
take on the PHP license is that it does need to be fixed.  From
ftp-masters REJECT-FAQ, they also think so.  So my advice would be to
just use a well known, existing license and be done with it.  Judging
from the existing PHP license, the closest thing would be the 3 clause
BSD license

  http://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause

Apache 2.0 would also be a good choice.

Now, I understand that changing licenses is a huge chore, and the
benefits can sometimes be intangible.  The main benefit is that you
will never have to deal with us again ;)

Cheers,
Walter Landry
wlandry@caltech.edu