Re: Re: Debian and the PHP license

On Wed, Jul 30, 2014 at 1:47 PM, Thorsten Glaser <tg@debian.org> wrote: >>> On the other hand, my own reading of the PHP Licence is that we may not, >>> in fact, distribute (binaries of) modified versions of PHP software (the >>> interpreter as well as everything else under that licence), period - but >>> that distributing the original source alongside patches is okay (e.g. as >>> 3.0 (quilt) source package). Since Debian isn't distributing source pak- >>> kages, this does not help us. A written permission from group@php.net is >>> not helpful either, because of DFSG#8. >> >>Good point. (I think you're referring to section 4; correct me if I'm > > Right. > >>wrong.) This would make PHP-licensed software *with PHP in the title* >>non-free until rebranded, like firefox was until rebranded to iceweasel. > > Indeed. And seeing this, I think that Debian may ship neither the > PHP interpreter nor anything else under PHP licence without doing > a rebranding. > >>This would not, however, make the license non-free, it would just make >>for some annoying rebranding, which should be much more manageable. > > It would, however, make the licence inacceptable for Debian for > anything bearing PHP in its name, which is kinda the point of > the PHP licence. This is not what the license says. The license says you cannot create a derivative project and use PHP in its name. hhvm is a derivative work for example. Distributing php, even by back porting patches, is not a derivative work. Cheers, -- Pierre @pierrejoye | http://www.libgd.org