Re: Re-Releasing PEAR packages under the BSD license

On 12/14/06, Sylvain Beucler <beuc@beuc.net> wrote:

On Thu, Dec 14, 2006 at 11:39:28AM -0800, Justin Patrin wrote: On 12/14/06, Sylvain Beucler <beuc@beuc.net> wrote:

On Thu, Dec 14, 2006 at 11:54:48AM +0100, Christian Weiske wrote:

Sylvain,

Currently I'm a bit unsure about whether I can or cannot use packages under the PHP license in my application.

You can use the packages without problems in your application, since GPL is more strict than the PHP license is. The other way round would not

work. Hi, I don't think so. I think both licenses have requirements, but the PHP License requirements are not a subset of the requirements of the GPL. This is independant to whether the GPL has more or less requirements than the PHP License. This extra requirements of the PHP License are related to the use of the name 'PHP'. This is not in the GPL, so licenses are incompatible IMHO.

So? I honestly don't see what the problem here is. Just don't use the name "PHP" in the name of your project. That clause doesn't kick in and you have no problems. IMO this requirement will nonetheless still apply to the combined work (my proj + pear package). Since I cannot add additional requirements to a GPL'd app, then I'm violating the GPL. I didn't invent that, you can check the links I mentioned - among others this one: http://gplv3.fsf.org/wiki/index.php/PHP_license%2C_version_3.01

The modified BSD's requirements are a subset of the GPL, so both licenses are compatible. Incompatible means I cannot combine the two kinds of work. You can use GPL'd code with (compatible) mBSD'd code - the resulting work will be under the GPL, be it in one way or another. But you cannot legally combine GPL'd code with incompatible code (hence why incompatible licenses are referenced at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLIncompatibleLicenses). This link has some more information about it: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WhatIsCompatible All in all, I don't think I can't legally use HTML_QuickForm in Savane :/

I think you're confusing 2 issues here. The licenses have 2 different use-cases. 1) You link/use some code from something in your application. 2) You modify or directly incorporate some code from something in your application. If you do 2) with incompatible licenses you're SOL. You can't do that. However, if you do 1) with "so-called" incompatible licenses you're ok. For example, all PEAR libraries are licensed with licenses such that you can "link" them to closed source applications without licensing your application under the same license. This is exactly what the LGPL is for and this is why we don't accept GPL or other licenses than what we have listed. Summary: require_once 'HTML/QuickForm.php'; is perfectly valid in your application, whatever license you put to your code, be it GPL, LGPL, PHP, closed/commercial, or OpenSSL. This constitutes linking another package's code into yours, not modifying it. I don't think so. When I combine 2 pieces of code, even if I just link them (or include()) them, this is still a derived work, and license compatibility still apply. If I could combine incompatible license just because I don't modify the 'inside' of the code, then I could use a GPL'd library even in proprietary software. The LGPL is specially written to allow such external linking - that would not be necessary if linking were legally possible without explicit permission. Linking = derived version I don't know why the FSF would write an OpenSSL replacement (http://www.gnu.org/software/gnutls/), and why Debian would deem GPL+OpenSSL not legally distributable (http://ftp-master.debian.org/REJECT-FAQ.html) if I could freely link with OpenSSL. This pages explains the problem pretty well: http://www.gnome.org/~markmc/openssl-and-the-gpl.html The series of questions about GPL'd plug-ins offers some explanations on the distinction between linking and fork+exec (which is not affected by license compatibilities): http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLAndPlugins Therefore I cannot use PEAR packages under the PHP license in a GPL'd app because the two licenses are incompatible due to details (not major differences), and currently this prevents me from using these packages. I do think that using the modified BSD instead, which is not hard and changes nothing from PEAR developers' point of view, would make the situation cleaner. I'll add a bit of background about me: I'm doing basic legal checks on a regular basis for a couple years now, for new projects that are submitted at Savannah.gnu.org. Every incoming project is checked for such issues. I think that I had to cope with license incompatibilies often enough to grasp the basics, and I had to discuss with licensing@fsf.org several times to make decisions in corner cases. I'm still not a lawyer, but if I take the time to bug you about it, this means I am pretty sure there's an issue. This was already discussed following such a project submission review: http://www.zend.com/lists/pear-dev/200410/msg00039.html It was acknowledged that there was an issue, and the proposed solution was to add an exception to the GPL'd code - which I can't in this case, because I'm not the copyright holder, and also because that would make my code incompatible with other GPL'd libs (that doesn't come with such an exception). I don't think I'm proposing something radically different than what is currently done, so please take a bit of time to consider it.

Please see http://pear.php.net/manual/en/faq.licenses.php. If the statements here are false then there is a problem. -- Justin Patrin