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PHP Not Moving To The GPL
darthcamaro writes "In an article on InternetNews.com, PHP co-founder Andi Gutmans takes a small shot at RMS (and the FSF), labelling them as fanatics and as not being representative of PHP's user base. 'Most of PHP's user base are people that are using PHP to make a living and they wouldn't care less. "They are just happy that it's a PHP license and they can do whatever they want with it and can ship it with their commercial products," he said.' The comments were made in the context of the recent MySQL LGPL to GPL licesing problem which is what the article is really about. '"We definitely don't see eye to eye on the issue of licensing. He [Richard Stallman] doesn't like our licensing and we know that," Gutmans said. "We're aware of each other, but the PHP project has no intention of moving to some sort of GPL license."'"
Now, can some one please paste what the PHP license is all about. Please understand that the lay-man might not easily understand legal terms, myself included.
This might have an obvious answer or something, but I just don't see it. I was under the impression that once you submit your code to an open source project, you're submitting it under the current lisence of the project. When a project changes it's lisence, do they need to contact everyone who has submitted code to the project and get permission to release under the new lisence? That doesn't sound like an easy task for some large projects, so I'm guessing that's not how it's done. Can someone clarify this for me?
RaGe
We're all just noise on the wires..
Most of PHP's user base are people that are using PHP to make a living and they wouldn't care less
I doubt it. There is a huge non-profit/amateur base of users--look no further than the numerous php projects hosted on sourceforge.
How many major for-profit php apps can you name? Yes, many commercial sites use PHP. But a ton of noncommercial sites do too.
It is somewhat sad that the PHP developers don't see "the rest of us" as a significant portion of their user base, just as it was sad to see RMS not understand that his political message surrounding free software was turning many people off.
With PHP5, PHP langauge is very useful and powerful now, is this the turning point that gives the creators the idea that it can actually be used to make a profit the other way?
If it's too BSD-like, then this is a completely meaningless debate. CEO dude is right, PHP's users won't care. If it's too Sun-like, then there's something to talk about.
Oh. Here's what RMS says:That's still vague. What's the hiccup? It looks like RMS has no ideological problem with this license. Is there a new, worse license?
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
The problem is that ESR decided to go on a (particularly embarassing for the open source community, and not very diplomatically done) jihad to try to get Sun to open-source their Java implementation.
I think a lot more people are comfortable backing ESR than the rather-more-radical RMS.
So ESR's fans keep hammering on Sun.
In the case of Java, I think that it's even less of an issue than PHP, actually. Java was originally designed with the idea of many different VMs existing.
May we never see th
In the 80's, there was a GCC Public License, an Emacs Public License, and a GDB Public License. This made it awkward for people to mix the source code of these projects, so Stallman wrote a General Public License. The goal was to enable projects to share code. (remove the legal reading and interpretation and let hackers hack.)
Every now and again, someone who doesn't know the history, repeats it's mistakes.
Stallman asks people to use the GPL, but he doesn't take issue with people using other compatible licenses. He asks people to move to a compatible license - not necessarily the GPL - if their current license is incompatible. He's seen the problem, he's seen the solution, he tries to show people the two.
Another on-topic article is David Wheelers "Make Your Open Source Software GPL-Compatible. Or Else."
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If you say the GPL is too extreme and a fanatical thing, think about the future.
Its a wide social and long term thing.
Its bigger than "if I code software I can ask money for it"
If you code and licence it with the GPL, you give a part of you brain to the science and everyone can get profit out of it, poors and richs.
Technology controled by softwares is getting to the center of everything we do. In 50 years, if the majority of softwares that control everthing is proprietary licenced, try to tell me why the hell our society will not look like a big brotherian one?
The information technology is about controlling the information. If only the big corporation own the softwares who control all the data on the earth, and their unique goal is still to make more money, please tell me how is that good for the majority of the population?
The geeks here dosent seems to realize that the liberty will not disapear in one day, but a little at the time. Not abstracting from what you see and read everyday on IT and politics (among much others) may cause you to miss whats happening.
The GPL is a simple license that allow the information to stay usefull and usable for everyone. That makes people happy in life, more than money.
To be fair to PHP though, it does have (had?) the advantage of a smaller memory footprint, and I gather that a lot of ISPs feel more comfortable about letting random users loose with it rather than giving them access to mod_perl.
ObOnTopic: I'm mildly annoyed at the author of the article proudly proclaiming that PHP is the "P" in LAMP. That "P" has a number of interpretations.
Though in general LAMP is a really lousy piece of terminology. People use it to mean "free/open source web technology" when it's far too specific about software names. Someone who uses FreeBSD and a Postgresql database evidentally doesn't qualify... but if Postgresql would change it's name to MostGreatSql, then all of a sudden it would be allowed in the club...
Seriously, why should they? Most people don't realize what the GPL really is (specifically when you assign copyrights to the FSF). FSF is a software company, and all the software that has the GPL license - with copyrights transferred - belongs to that company. Others may use the GPL code so long as the derivative works still belong to the FSF (actually, it only truly belongs to the FSF if the copyrights of the derivative/new works are assigned back again). No one else can use the FSF's work without the FSF's permission, just like any other proprietary software.
If PHP wants to keep their software free under their terms... what's wrong with that? It's their software.
There was a slashdot post that I didn't get into (read article or comments) that I think was about Malaysia going open source. The person who submitted the article added, "Another victory for open source!" Seriously, f-off. There's no such thing as a victory for open source. Open source is not a movement, it's a matter of fact. The FSF + GPL is a movement, so you can call things a win for the GPL product's copyright's owners, and for the GPL in general.
I have nothing against the GPL or the FSF. Yay Linux, Yay GCC, Yay emacs (ducks). But coercing others to adopt it is wrong.
Moderators should have to take a reading comprehension test.
At least the PHP License doesn't incorporate the ideas of the Jabber Open Source License or their ilk.
Those licenses possess the requirement that any modifications be licensed back to the licensor (e.g. Jabber) such that they can turn around and incorporate them into their closed source products without any payment whatsoever. Those clauses strike me as licenses to exploit the goodwill and hard work of contributors to your codebase, as a substitute for paying an engineering staff.
the problem with java being "non-open source" is that an open source VM cannot be created and call it self java because they cannot have access to the "test suites" that one must pass to call themselves a java jvm.
during the recent javaone converence (too much fluff), the apache foundation made it clear that they would love the opportunity to have ahold of the test suites so someone could develop an opensource implementation. after all, they finally have achieved the ability to get a certified open source j2ee library/server set.
so, while java was designed to allow multiple vms existing, must they all be corporate vms? or even free vms? would ibm open source their vm if they could? would bea? i guess at least one of those two would be foot in mouth if they didn't.
Fan and fanatic share the same root. Why must people follow ESR or RMS. It is almost as funny as the people getting all bent over what the Dixie Chicks said about Bush. Why should I care what a singer thinks about politics any more than I care what the wife of a senator thinks about music "Thanks Tipper, those warning labels really helped a lot. How much did those hearings cost?"
Why should I really care what ESR or RMS thinks about the software I choose to use? I mean all this talk about freedom shouldn't I have the right to choose what software I use? Shouldn't I also have the right to choose how I want to release any software I write? If I want to GPL it great, If I want to BSD it that is good also. If I want to charge ONE BILLION DOLLARS for it well then it is my work and if you do not like it write it yourself.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
If you want to control what happens to your code, you put restrictions to it. That removes freedom. Period. Get over it.
At the risk of being modded down (and I surely will be) FUCK you. I will not get over it. I don't want to control code that I license under the GPL - I want to make sure NO ONE controls it. I am really tired of hearing this stupid smear. It's exactly equivalent logically to saying "if you want true freedom, you've got to let someone else be a tyrant or else you're restricting their freedom."
If you want control over your code, choose a proprietary license. If you want someone else to eventually control your code, choose BSD. If you want no one to control your code ever, choose GPL.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
I think you misunderstand a few things. It is my belief that developers do know better than salespeople when it comes to other developers...
Now, consider the name GNU - Gnu's Not Unix, specifically, it is supposed to be an imitation of Unix, which was developed to be a developer's system, and so was Gnu. Gnu gave us an editor, compiler, assembler, utilities, and everything you need for a unix like OS, well, except the all important kernel, but lets not go there.
My point is, the GPL is by developers, for developers, not grandmas. It's like pushing a cube through a round hole, hammer it enough and it'll squeeze through, but it wasn't meant to fit that way.
IMHO RMS thinks all computer users are like him, tech savvy, and therefore should appreciate his high minded idealism, but common sense shows, things just aren't that way.
This is a impressive post, but really misses the gist of the GPL. The purpose of the GPL is for code to stay free. You might argue that for this to happen some restraints are placed on what to do with the code, but that's really not the point.
Take for instance privancy law. I'm not familiar with the privacy laws of your country, but they might prohibbit companies selling your personal information, they might also prohibbit photographers from taking pictures on your private estate. They might prohibbit lots of other things. So there are several restrictions with regard to provacy laws.
Then by your same reasoning would you say privacy laws are unfree? Or do you see a pattern: to maximize freedom for one, one has to restrict the freedom for others.
The GPL values freedom for the receiver of software more, than the freedom of the provider, in the same way privacy laws favour the individual more than corporations. If you used the checklist to check the freedom of users, the results would be quite different.
This is completely unprofessional. I don't like some of the lifestyle choices that my neighbour makes, but I don't take to slagging him off in public about it. If GPL is not good for PHP, then so what - GPL is good for other things, but not everything - witness the popularity of the BSD license.
What you can't do, is redistribute it. The FreeBSD Java port (for example) requires you to download the source yourself, directly from SUN. I would like to see them remove this restriction and allow anyone to distribute unmodified copies of the source and binaries, and modified versions which pass compatibility tests.
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Why does this always come up? I in particular hate the extremists on both sides of the fence. Why must everything be GPL compatible? It is a rhetorical question.
I'll answer it anyway. The problem is that PHP is a programming language interpreter that is designed to integrate with database software. MySQL is database software, licensed under the GPL, that PHP can integrate with and which is the preferred database software of a very large percentage of PHP users.
The GPL incorporates a clause that states that if you link GPL code to any other code and distribute the result, you must license the other code under the GPL (or, equivalently, some license that contains no restrictions that the GPL doesn't). This applies even to dynamic linking.
PHP doesn't do this, so consequently, nobody can legally distribute a compiled copy of PHP with the MySQL module compiled in.
This is a big problem that must be solved one way or another. One side of the fence believes that PHP should drop all of their license restrictions that aren't in the GPL, the other believes that MySQL's client library (the portion of MySQL that needs to be linked with PHP) should be distributed under a license that doesn't contain the restriction I described above (e.g. the LGPL).
So far, there is no movement.
"Because they are saying very different things about software and, as a result, they reach different conclusions on some of the most interesting debates about software and how people should be treated."
Ahh but you see here is the rub... Do they know more than I do? Why should I hang on every word they write. Why should I not trust in my own judgement and not follow like a drone. I have read a lot of what they both have to say. Frankly I find ESR to be a selfrightous biggot. Yes I came to that opinon based on a private email I got from him.
RMS is a zelot in the worst sense of the word. He feels that any none GPL'd software is immoral. Lets not go into his OCD about Linux being called GNU Linux. Or the fact that he wastes interviews where he could be a spokesperson for OpenSource with the Linux is not an OS... GNULinux is...
"Freedom of choice is deceptively attractive because people who focus on choice can easily be undermined."
You see this kind of statment just makes me crazy!!! Talk about big brother! What you are saying is that I am not wise enough to decide if I have freedom of choice or not! There really is only one freedom and that is of choice!
"Choice is not bad to have but it is not the heart of either the free software or open source philosophies and choice alone will not bring you the ability to share and modify software."
There is NO freedom without choice! If you claim that FSF is about freedom as in freedom of speech "which I hear all the time" then it has to be choice! frankly the freedom to modify software is not one that I think should even be worried about because under GPL I am not free to modify the license am I? So I am free to only do what the license says I can do. Not any different than any other license. Freedom is that I can use the license I want when I write a program and you can use the one you want. If SCO and Microsoft have there way GPL would be illegal. That is wrong. PHP not using the GPL because they do no like it is freedom.
Freedom is if the FSF does not like the way that PHP is licensed then they can write there own solution.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The license favors him so why would he care? And the people who it doesn't favor should just shut up because they are fanatical?
If I wrote some handy software project but had a license with a clause "...everyone but Bill Gates can use it..." most of the people of the world can would be able to use it and hence its mostly open. However to say that this license is "...is very open..." is a half true. To carry on like its just as good as the GPL is dumb and shows a lack of understanding of the philosophy of the GPL.
People should be free to write whatever they like under what ever license they like. However to say "this license that is nearly as open as the GPL is just as good as the GPL" is wrong. At best, like the BSD license, it is just different (no better or worse) and at worse the license is a tool to make sure they can take some of the advantages of being mostly open yet stroke their ego because they are in absolutely control.
Andi Gutmans just doesn't want someone to come along and make a better PHP. That isn't "very open" or "just as good" as the GPL or BSD.