Re: Updating the PHP license

Francesco Poli <[email protected]> Sun, 19 May 2024 18:42:01 +0200
Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.legal
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
On Sat, 18 May 2024 15:18:36 -0500 Ben Ramsey wrote:

> Hi, all!

Hello Ben!

> 
> Over the years, the open source community, including Debian, has had
> a few lengthy discussions and disagreements regarding the PHP
> license.[^1][^2][^3] The TL;DR sentiment of all these discussions
> amounts to: change the license to something well-understood and less
> problematic.

Indeed, I have personally voiced my disappointment with the PHP License
for a long time. See, for instance, my [analysis] of the PHP License,
version 3.01, and an additional [comment] about another issue.

[analysis]: <https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/11/msg00272.html>
[comment]: <https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/02/msg00371.html>

And I have also attempted to persuade the PHP Group to switch to a well
known and widely adopted general purpose (DFSG-compliant) license.
I got in touch with the PHP Group back in 2016 and tried to convince
them to switch to the 3-clause BSD license, but my attempt was
unfortunately unsuccessful...

> 
> So, that’s what I’m proposing to do in a new RFC I’ve drafted for the
> PHP project: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/php_license_update 

Given what I said above, you may guess I am really happy about your RFC!
Thanks a lot for drafting it and for stewarding this proposal.

> 
> I’ve not opened this up for discussion within the PHP project yet,
> since I’m still collecting feedback, and that’s why I’m sharing it
> here. I’ve put a lot of work into presenting what I think is a sound
> and well-reasoned argument for this change, and I’m asking for
> feedback from this group regarding the method and theory I’m using to
> go about it.

Here's some feedback about version 0.3 of your RFC.

| The proposed changes for the PHP software repository will not affect
| the PHP Manual. The PHP Manual will remain licensed under the Creative
| Commons Attribution 3.0 License or later.

How unfortunate!
Creative Commons licenses are also controversial (although this one,
CC-by-v3.0, is accepted by the Debian Project, I personally disagree).

Anyway, the general recommendation is to license the documentation
under the same legal terms as the documented program or library.
Hence, I would suggest to also switch the PHP Manual to the 3-clause
BSD license... this would be absolutely great (although it would
probably require to seek approval among its copyright holders).

| External extensions currently licensed under the PHP License may
| continue to use the PHP License. There is no need to change extension
| licenses.

I don't think so.

If the PHP Group decides to elect the 3-clause BSD license as the next
version (4.0) of the PHP License, then clause 5 of the PHP License version
3.01 will kick in and any piece of software currently licensed under
the terms of the PHP License version 3.01 will *instantly* be also
available under the terms of the 3-clause BSD license, at the
recipient's choice.

A similar reasoning should hold for the Zend Engine License, as well...

> 
> Thanks in advance!

You're welcome.
Thanks to you for sharing this draft document!

> 
> Cheers,
> Ben

Bye!   :-)

> 
> 
> [^1]: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Flists.debian.org%2Fdebian-legal%2F+php
> [^2]: https://lwn.net/Articles/604630/
> [^3]: https://ftp-master.debian.org/php-license.html
> 


-- 
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 There's not a second to spare! To the laboratory!
..................................................... Francesco Poli .
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