Re: Appropriate license for packages

On 2/15/04 10:29 PM, Klaus Guenther wrote:

"Stefan Neufeind" <stefan@neufeind.net> wrote:

although this is a little OT, maybe somebody can help me out. Does somebody know of any talks held or articles written about choosing the right license? This would be of particular interest to me with reference to packages (like the ones shipped by PEAR).

I think it would be of use. Iirc, there was an article on licensing in the PHP Magazine International Edition, but it would be nice to have a page in the manual that describes the various licenses that are acceptable to PEAR and the benefits of each.

When reading the PHP license again I recently thought there might be paragraphs in it which completely don't go together with PEAR packages (not only but e.g. even the closing sentence "This product includes the Zend Engine" - which is not included when we distribute packages).

That is right. Perhaps it is time to create a PEAR license that is based on the PHP license, but without certain clauses -- such as the one you mentioned. Ianal, but it may be possible to create a derivative license that automatically updates itself based on the latest PHP license (or we can use the same version numbers as the PHP license). Something like "This license is based on the PHP License 3.0, excluding paragraphs ... and substituting the following wording for paragraph ...".

Please not yet another lisence ;) If you'd like to switch or recommend something else than the PHP license, please consider the Apache 2.0 License. From http://apache.org/licenses/ : **** "The goals of this license revision have been to reduce the number of frequently asked questions, to allow the license to be reusable without modification by any project (including non-ASF projects), to allow the license to be included by reference instead of listed in every file, to clarify the license on submission of contributions, to require a patent license on contributions that necessarily infringe the contributor's own patents, and to move comments regarding Apache and other inherited attribution notices to a location outside the license terms" *** The basic idea behind the apache license stays the same (compared to the 1.x license) and it's more or less the same as the PHP license anyway. And as PHP is an official Apache Project, I think, PHP itself should switch to the Apache Software License 2.0, some day. But i'm neither in the position to decide this, nor am I really advocating this, I'm happy with the license as it is. chregu