Re: Could some kind soul review these patches please.

At 02:56 14/12/2000, Rasmus Lerdorf wrote:

But it is less blatant. The PHP+Zend license that PHP ships under is incompatible with the GPL. Shipping a module alongside a package that the module is not allowed to be linked into doesn't work. The PEAR license, once PEAR gets separated from PHP would not have the Zend clause and would thus be compatible with the GPL.

Huh? That's wrong as well - the BSD license which PHP uses is incompatible with the GPL. Just like the APL is incompatible with the GPL. It's either we go back to the GPL (which we won't), or we face the consequences. The Zend license plays no role here. PHP 3.0's license is also incompatible with the GPL. Quite honestly, all these years when we were distributing PHP under a dual license - it was a complete mess from a legal perspective, as the two licenses completely contradicted each other - the PHP license was *never* compatible with the GPL. Zeev

Shipping a module as part of a package of modules that have no license conflicts, especially if those modules are written to be backward compatible with PHP 3 which does not have a GPL conflict would paint a much better picture. We can still put in the warning that linking readfile into PHP 4 would violate the GPL, but at least we are not blatantly helping people violate the GPL if there is some use for the module where no such violation would occur. -Rasmus On Thu, 14 Dec 2000, Zeev Suraski wrote: At 02:23 14/12/2000, Rasmus Lerdorf wrote:

There are certain extensions that can't be distributed alongside PHP because of license conflicts. Distributing these separately from a tree without such license restrictions is the only real solution I see short of dropping those extensions completely. A good example is the readline extension which we will have to remove from PHP due to a license conflict.

That's not true really. The readline extension is just as 'illegal' to distribute if you distribute it outside PHP. Distribution is meaningless. The fact that readline is GPL'd, and that the PHP license is incompatible with it, means that PHP mustn't be linked with readline, period. It says nothing about our ability to distribute code which is compatible with readline (it's impossible to prevent such a thing). The ones that are violating the license are the users, who actually compile the readline extension and link the readline library in. They'll be violating the license just the same if the readline extension source is inside PHP, inside PEAR, or just available separately on www.foo.bar. The only thing we can do about this is display a small disclaimer, warning people that linking the library with the GNU readline library may violate the GPL, and that they're doing it at their own risk. It's ultra-silly anyway. Zeev -- Zeev Suraski <zeev@zend.com> CTO, Zend Technologies Ltd. http://www.zend.com/

-- Zeev Suraski <zeev@zend.com> CTO, Zend Technologies Ltd. http://www.zend.com/