On Fri, 27 Jun 2014 09:56:04 +0200 Ferenc Kovacs wrote: [...] > I think they just consider our license troublesome for exts as it seems too > specific for php-src, and they only want to avoid possible license > infringement.
As far as I can say, the issue pointed out by the Debian Project is exactly that some clauses (at least 3, 4, and 6 + some disclaimers) of the PHP License v3.01 are inappropriate and/or troublesome for anything that is not php-src. Personally, I see one freeness issue even when the PHP License is applied to php-src, but I failed to gain consensus on this within the Debian Project. Please note that I am _not_ a member of the Debian Project (I'm just an external contributor) and I am _not_ speaking on behalf of the Debian Project. My own personal analysis of the PHP License v3.01 was sent to debian-legal back on 2005 [1]. [1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/11/msg00272.html > I don't think that what they are doing is practical (I mean we don't even > care/enforce about the don't use the php name part for example > http://www.php-debugger.com/ is a debugger php extension), but we all know > how considerate are the debian maintainers about licensing. If you don't even care about clauses 3 or 4, and you don't even try to enforce them, why don't you just drop them from the license? You would save many people's time and avoid many licensing headaches... Better yet: I would personally recommend to switch to a well known and widely adopted general purpose (DFSG-compliant) license. For instance you could elect the Apache License v2.0 [2] as the next version (4.0) of the PHP License. [2] https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.txt If you decide so, you will get multiple advantages: * adopting a well vetted license saves a bunch of legal hassles for both the copyright holders and all the (potential) users/re-distributors who are already familiar with the terms and conditions * the Apache License v2.0 is compatible with the GNU GPL (even though only with version 3, and not with version 2, unfortunately) [3] [3] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#apache2 * the Apache License v2.0 is written w.r.t to a generic work and a generic licensor, without any reference to a specific piece of software, and may thus be adopted by PHP, PHP extensions, and other programs, without worrying about distinguishing Please note that a number of other projects have already switched from the Apache License v1.1 [4] (or a similar license) to the Apache License v2.0: the most notable examples are perhaps the Apache HTTPD Server and the Subversion version control system. The PHP License seems to be derived from a text which is somewhat similar to the old Apache License v1.1 ... [4] https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-1.1 I hope this idea may help. Bye. -- http://www.inventati.org/frx/ fsck is a four letter word... ..................................................... Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == CA01 1147 9CD2 EFDF FB82 3925 3E1C 27E1 1F69 BFFE
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