OK, I'm relatively new to the open source community, so I'm a little lost
here. I thought the whole point of open source is "let's all be happy and
get along together, and share our source code". But two groups aren't
allowed to work together?
The FSF and Richard Stallman, who wrote the GPL, advance a political agenda with their license. Not everyone agrees with their particular agenda, so those who disagree use more politically neutral licenses such as the BSD-license.
Unfortunately, the wording of the GPL is such that: software under most less political licenses can be used and redistributed under the GPL, whereas GPL software requires you to release derivative and linked software under the GPL. Like the viral marketing schemes of Hotmail and the like, the GPL can 'infect' software. Developers who use non-GPL licenses must be extremely careful of using GPL code, because they risk losing the ability to choose the license for themselves.
The risk presents itself no matter how insignificant or small the code, and as a result, the PHP developers, fearing loss of control over their own software, need to be very mindful of all the code they use.
You probably ask: "Doesn't this cause dual efforts at times?" Yes, developers who want to control their own code and have the ability to choose its licensing must often create their own replacement for code that is already available. Sometimes, byzantine workarounds allow the use of GPL software with non-GPL software. Any developer must ask him/herself, "Can my program run without the use of this GPLed software?" If any tiny chance of it not working exists, and you choose to release the software anyhow, be prepared to release your software too under the GPL.
As you have so astutely observed, the open source community divides between the GPL coders and the non-GPL coders, and the non-GPL coders, because they want to retain control of the decision of how to license, or because they don't believe in the agenda of the FSF, cannot use any GPLed code. In effect, "two groups aren't allowed to work together."
I don't point fingers at either party for this schism: it exists, and most of us do what we have to do.
People have a variety of reasons for choosing GPL: some choose it because they don't want commercial interests to be profiting from their work without sharing with the community. Some choose GPL because they believe in freedom of code.
Myself, hailing from the Macintosh community and entering into the Linux community a few years ago working with the company that is now ApplianceWare (when I left the company, my Mac went to Adrian Sun, who wrote netatalk, or so I've been told), I don't understand the forking the GPL causes, and I have serious doubts about the philosophical basis of the license. However, that (and this whole explanation, in fact) doesn't concern this list and I refuse to bore you all with the details of my own personal feelings.
No need to wake the sleeping armies on this list ;)
Jake Stetser
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