Slashdot Mirror
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."'"
Really, it looks to me like the crux of the issue is that the devlopers of PHP don't like being told what 'free' means. And really, who can blame them? Freedom is certainly worth speaking up for, but from what I got from the article it seems as though all the parties concerned are using free licenses. In fact, I think that Gutman nailed it when he said "As long as they are not inhibited from being able to use PHP I don't see a problem from the end user's perspective. Personally I don't really see a big problem."
I have to say that I don't see one either.
Why should everything down to the machine code have to have a GPL license? It seems to me that there's nothing in PHP's license that would prevent you from licensing YOUR software that YOU wrote in PHP with GPL (just as there's nothing in .NET's license preventing you from using it as the language to write open source in).
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
In other news, I need to go to the ATM machine and punch in my PIN number
Sheesh, that article is about MySQL's license which they had changed to not allow vendors to redistribute the server and the client.
php has it's license info here:
http://www.php.net/license/
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
Oh yea? Well I'll just go and make my own license. With strippers and blackjack. In fact, forget about the license and the blackjack.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I agree with Gutmans completely. Richard Stallman's GPL is free like Henry Ford's quote: "You can have any color as long as it's black." You can link anything with GPL'ed code as long as it's other GPL (or GPL-equivalent) code.
I'll take the BSD license anytime. Code migrates from BSD to Linux (but not Linux to BSD) because of GPL.
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.
Up to "user base", I thought Andi was doing a good thing (he takes shots at RMS' fanatism, that can't be all bad can it?).
But his implying that RMS and the FSF stand against making a living off of GPLed products totally misses the point, and makes him lose all coolness factor in my eyes. This is a common mistake that most everybody who does not understand the GPL makes: does the GPL prevent you from making money the Microsoft way? certainly. Does it prevent you from making money? certainly not (see RH, SuSE,...). Is it harder to make money off of GPL products? probably, in the traditional sense, the answer is probably in the services around them.
That Slashdotters and other hysterical Linux fans mistake the GPL for a money-grubbing-prevention license is sad but it's all too common. That somebody as prominent as Andi should make himself look like a fool by spewing the same sort of FUD, that's just wrong. I dislike RMS as much as anyone, but I'll credit the guy for saying over and over again that his aim is *not* to prevent people from making a living with software.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
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.
PHP has got something good, why change it? I'm with... that dude on this, when i wrote php i didnt care about the licence only that i could download and use it for free ($0). I consider the GPL a good licence but PHP has a good thing going and i dont think it needs a GPL licence or that it could benifit alot from it.
Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/
http://news.com.com/2100-7344_3-5173014.html?part= rss&tag=feed&subj=news
From March 12th.
and of course slashdot in some stupid "poop in the eye" moment screwed the story completely up because a cluebie posted the article.
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
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 you read the text of the php license it would appear to be almost on par with a bsd license. RMS prob is upset because it would appear the license does not require releasing source code if you realease modified binaries. It's all semantics of the word free. Free as in cannot be closed again or free as in you can do whatever you want with it. Nothing more than a bsd v gpl debate and neither camp with change the others mind anytime soon.
:(){
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.
This "you can still make money" bullshit is rediculous. I can still make money giving away GPL software by working at fucking McDonalds too, but I want to sell software, so I am not going to do that. You can't say people are bad or wrong for wanting to sell software, or for saying that the GPL prevents them from doing so, cause it does. Not everyone can or wants to be a service or support company, the GPL will never be everywhere, so deal with it and quit calling FUD when people don't do things the RMS way.
The PHP license seems to be working pretty well for PHP right now, so there may not be a need to change it. And, of course, if you write the software, you get to pick the license. But other people still have a right to debate and criticize you as well.
OTOH, RMS's concerns aren't (just) philosophical or "religious". RMS's views are based on decades of experience with bad things that can happen to software under different licenses; his concerns are real and informed.
If you want to be sure that software remains open source and that it will continue to survive and thrive, the GPL and LGPL are time-tested licenses whose consequences (both good and bad) people understand better. That doesn't mean other licenses aren't as good or maybe even better from an OSS perspective, it's just harder to know.
Andi Gutmans is a co-founder of the Zend company, not PHP.
Rasmus Lerdorf is the founder of PHP.
Maybe RMS is a little fanatical - but be thankful for that. Look at all the great software his vision has provided us with. It's fine to complain and stuff, but I think he's given more to us (the little people) than anyone else (I can think of) for so little (free!). Also, the small distiction between GPL and the PHP license (which I don't understand) may one day in the more distant future be a big deal! For one, I'm glad RMS is out there taking the hard stance with eyes to the future.
I am NOT changing my name to Barnaby ...
...
...
The DMCA has NOT been overturned
The sky is NOT falling
Since when is news what is NOT happening?
It completely fails to define what exactly is the license difference being argued over. Oh well, I guess that wasn't of interest.... the flaming was what was interesting to the reporter/editor.
Would someone who knows please define what exactly is the license difference being argued over?
I don't see how any slashdot reader not already familiar with the dispute can have an informed opinion on this matter to post based on that article....
Hans
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."
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
Andi Gutmans seems to have considered his comments for very little time, or is intentionally choosing to label a diverse group of people with FUD like this:
"The GNU community, in my opinion, is a very fanatic community and I don't think it represents the real serious open source users. It definitely doesn't represent the PHP user base," Gutmans said.
"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.
It seems that almost everyone that has an alterior motive for disliking the GPL chooses to hide behind this incorrect criticism. GPL'ed code *can* be used in commercial products, and the weird thing about hearing this crap from Gutmans is that PHP is already Open Source.
- Brian.
I repeat: READ THE GPL BEFORE COMMENTING ABOUT IT!!!
the grandparent wasn't talking about overuse of acronyms, but about not knowing what the acronyms mean.
ATM = Automatic Teller Machine
PIN = Personal Identification Number
so saying "ATM machine to type in my PIN number" is incorrect repetition just like "GPL licence" (GNU Public Licence licence)
In other news, Microsoft has recently announced that it has no plans to relicense Windows or Office under the GPL. Apache, Sun, Oracle, the BSD teams, and just about every other commercial software company have followed suit and not licensed their flagship products under the GPL.
The PHP team has shown great pride at being the leader in this worldwide movement of not licensing software under the GPL.
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...
What's next, a story called, "FSF Not Moving to BSD License", or "Bush Not Voting For Kerry"?
Now with recursion at the front AND back of the acronym!
Tweet, tweet.
The thing that bothers me about PHP is that it is Free... unless you want it to run fast. Even the "free" Zend Optimizer is closed source. It makes me wonder if optimizing patches to the Zend Engine (PHP Engine) would be rejected because they compete with Zend's buisness model. I know Zend doesn't owe me anything, but the fact that fast PHP is not free should weighed properly when evelauting solutions.
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.
The result is that it's impossible to incorporate GPL software into a commercial product if you wish the software to remain proprietary. With PHP software, no problem.
And by the way, I don't consider myself one of the "little people". Stallman, at 5' 5", maybe.
If such a disaster befell the FSF, it still wouldn't be easy to revoke the rights of all downstream recipients. All of those projects would immediately fork and the corrupt version of the projects would have zero street cred. What happened with XFree86 was nowhere near as evil but it does illustrate what the reaction to disagreeable licensing by evil new owners will be.
There so much FSF code that most of it wouldn't be worth jack shit if it lost its maintainers. The only real booty would be what the usurpers could maintain and release themselves. There would be a shitload of admins and end users who wouldn't touch those versions with a 10,000 foot pole. Screwing with the FSF in that way would be a waste of your hypothetical half a billion dollars.
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.
First, I am not arguing that the GPL is bad, evil, wrong, etc. It has its place and authors of software certainly have the right to prefer it. The GPL is more restrictive than some other open source licenses. The fact that its restrictions are 'well meaning" or "politically popular" does not alter the fact that it is more restrictive. That said ...
The GPL is free as in free speech, meaning "freedom". With freedom, as we all know, comes responsibility.
PHP/MIT/BSD et al licences are free as in free time, meaning "no (or few) strings attached".
Your definition of "freedom" is self serving and wrong. Given two licenses the one with the fewer strings is the more free, i.e. GPL is the less free of the two.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=freedom
1. The condition of being free of restraints.
GPL loses here, I am restrained from using it in non-open projects.
2. Liberty of the person from slavery, detention, or oppression.
n/a
3. a. Political independence.
b. Exemption from the arbitrary exercise of authority in the performance of a specific action; civil liberty: freedom of assembly.
GPL loses here, it is certainly politically biased. You may like this bias but that is a different topic.
4. Exemption from an unpleasant or onerous condition: freedom from want.
GPL looses here, its conditions can be unpleasant for some commercial users. Even onerous is some cases. Consider GPL'd software that was taxpayer funded. I realize it is popular mythology that corporations pay no taxes but after having been around a number of small companies and small business owners I know that this particular myth is incorrect.
5. The capacity to exercise choice; free will: We have the freedom to do as we please all afternoon.
GPL loses here as well, quite obviously.
6. Ease or facility of movement: loose sports clothing, giving the wearer freedom.
n/a
7. Frankness or boldness; lack of modesty or reserve: the new freedom in movies and novels.
n/a
8. a. The right to unrestricted use; full access: was given the freedom of their research facilities.
An even more obvious loss by GPL compared to PHP/BSD.
b. The right of enjoying all of the privileges of membership or citizenship: the freedom of the city.
n/a
9. A right or the power to engage in certain actions without control or interference: "the seductive freedoms and excesses of the picaresque form" (John W. Aldridge).
Again GPL loses, it exercises more control.
To emphasize I have nothing against the GPL or people that choose to release their work under the GPL. That is certainly their right. My only argument is against the notion that the GPL embodies freedom.
I agree that it is restrictive. It is your freedom to use it or not. It is your freedom to buy something else to use in your product.
You could use something which is LGPL where the "library" portion must be disclosed but the rest of your application may be closed.
It is the choice of person that wrote the software how they want to use it. This is their freedom when they work on something, as they could have easily made you pay for it. They in return would like you to develop open software for the masses, your choice to have freedom to distribute or to make money off the back of others without payment.
If the license is no good for your product then it does not matter who developed it you must pass it by and find another. This may be proprietary or open source.
I really admire Bill Gates for having the guts to stand up to RMS like that.
That being the case, my question becomes whether people are actually looking for freedom or if freedom is just a nice word that fits closely enough to what they want.
Personally, I want a license that will allow people to view and modify the code for use in their own projects, submit bugfixes back to the originator and allow for greater learning by viewing past methods of problem solving / logic, without taking away the rights of the original author. As far as I know (and I could be mistaken), the GPL does that fairly well. It may not be pure freedom, but it's much better than the usual EULA.
GPL maximizes the collective benefit to society at large at the expense of individual liberty. This is, by definition, a socalist philosophy.
BSD maximizes individual liberty at the potential expense of society as a whole. This is, by definition, a libertarian philosophy.
Compelling another to a course of action against their will is the antithesis of freedom. You can't force other people to be socially responsible. Freedom includes the right to be an asshole.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
When we talk about freedom in a philosophical sense, especially the construction being used by RMS, we are talking about "freedom from x", where x is the philosophically defined constraint. When RMS says that "the GPL guarantees freedom", his construction is effectively saying "the GPL guarantees freedom from closed source software". Implied within that argument (though RMS is often more explicit) is the idea that closed source software is the constraint.
With this in mind, the GPL is more free than the BSD, MIT etc, because the GPL ensures freedom from closed source software. Of course you may not agree with that conception of freedom or the premises on which it is based. That does not prevent the internal validity of RMS claims that the GPL is more free.
All definitions of free are self-serving, but that does not make them wrong.
I come from a LAN down under
Where the packets flow and routers chunder
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.
I don't see how misapplying a ton of definitions helps clarify which license is "free-er". A better way to look at is by analogy.
Take two imaginary places: the US as governed by the constitution, and Anarchyland. (The fact that I refer to the US as governed by the constitution as an imaginary place can by interperted as you like.)
In the US, there are many laws that restrict what you can do: you can't kill people, and you cant buy a television station and broadcast 24/7 that your neighbor picks his nose (unless you neighbor is a public figure, of course). By the techincal definition you seem to be using, every one of these laws takes away your freedom, thus making you less free. In that technical sense, I agree.
In Anarchyland, you can do whatever you want. There are absolutely no laws against anything. You can kill your neighbor if he picks his nose in public. According to your technical definition, Anarchyland has the absolute maximum freedom that could ever be achieved in a society.
Now, look at the end result. In Anarchyland, nobody can leave their house, because they are afraid of being killed. It is incredibly unsafe to drive on the highway, and the end result is that people can hardly do anything. In contrast, the US allows people to basically do what they want, when they want, provided they dont want to kill people. I would call this freedom.
To avoid pissing off the libertarians, I should specify that the analysis doesn't have to work out the way I described it. Perhaps Anarchyland actually provides more freedom in the end. My point is that simply looking at the statues themselves is not enough to determine the freedom they provide or protect. It is necessary to analyze the end result and determine how it affects freedom overall. Simply stating that the GPL has more restrictions is like stating that the US has stricter laws against murder, so people in the US are less free than people in Iraq.
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.
Except no one is forced to use GPL software. If you don't like it, use something else.
The GPL is quite compatible with capitalism: The author retains copyright, but allows others to redistribute derivative works, provided the source for the derivative work is available under the same terms. Quid pro quo.
Hmmm, wouldn't forcing people to be socially responsible make you an asshole? QED. Anyway, nothing forces you to accept the GPL, since you can choose to not create derivative works.
This message has been scanned for memes and dangerous content by MindScanner, and is believed to be unclean.
"Most of PHP's user base are people that are using PHP to make a living and they wouldn't care less. " ~Gutmans Yes many of the php user don't care about GPL license. Same as many earthlings dun care about green house effect, global warming and pollution. So one day to wake up seeing your house buried by snow or wash away by the sea. Many people dun care many things but that doesn't mean they dun deserve the right to have it. Microsoft do this, user dun care, we control the things they dun care, and then we master the users. Obviously many people do care, that is why Scientist shout "stop the pollution", and FSF shout "Use GPL!". And they are fanatic, you can be sure of that. Because they are to wake up a large large bunch of people who have dun care syndrome or some with their ugly intention. You can't do that without a little passion or better yet be a fanatic that people call you. Nevertheless we have the right to choose the decision for better or for worse. So, when your house get buried by snow or your computer hang. Dun say you have not been warned or people have not shout loud enough. You just didn't lend them your ear.
Good post.
I think some points were over simplified, though. None of the licenses being discussed force anyone to do something against their will. Use of the software is completely volountary in both cases. The main difference I can see between the GPL and BSD is the "share and share-alike" philosophy. This simply values the collective (and individual) right to have access to code modifications higher than the value of the individual to maintain exclusive rights over modified code (and only for software that is generally released). Compare this to commonly accepted laws which actually do restrict behaviour. For example, litter laws protects society at large at the "cost" of restricting an individual's right to dump garbage at will. Tellingly, most people wouldn't consider that an "individual right" in the first-place.
Both licences share a libertarian doctrine, though perhaps to different degrees. After all, the opposite of libertarianism is authoritarianism, not socialism (which belongs in an economic spectrum).
The GPL is not a socialist philosophy nor is individual liberty compromised. The GPL doesn't restrict your rights though it does place an obligation on you (which you accept only by your volountarily use of the software). Further, you are still free to commoditize your product (or what-have-you) so long as you share-back as well. In fact, it is more akin to a Pareto Optimal solution: it provides the maximum benefit to society and no one is made worse off.
Another great thing about freedom is that through it we can cooperate to try and limit the impact that the assholes have on us. Of course, everyone is a bit of an asshole, so both licenses are good.
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. Think of licenses as governments. If every country where a democracy the world would be dull, corrupt, and would never get Jack or his friend to do anything for a decent price. The fact is we_need_veriety in our diet. The whole idea, theory, religion of open source is great and commendable--but it does not work in all situations. Please do not bring the fight that if everyone would learn how to program under Linux the world would be colorful and full of pretty butterflies. That's just plain poopy. That is like telling 1 billion Chinese people that they have to learn English if they want to be successful.
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
Everybody is griping about how PHP's license is incompatible with the GPL (meaning you cannot really use stuff under the PHP license with stuff under the GPL license together). So let's look it over, shall we?
Statements 1, 2, and 3 are extremely similar to the stuff you'll find in any and all BSD type licenses. They're basically straight rips from the BSD license, just reworded slightly. This is totally GPL compatible, as these are even less restrictive than the GPL is.
Statement 4 is similar to some parts of the GPL, but essentially it's just saying that they're retaining copyright and thus can change the license. As such, it's not particularly useful or informative, and I'd count it as a null factor. Especially since they cannot retroactively change a license, under any circumstances. This does not break GPL compatibility.
Statement 5 is the one that actually makes it GPL-incompatible, as the GPL states that you cannot place restrictions on the thing above and beyond the GPL itself. So if you derive something from GPL code and PHP-licensed code, it becomes essentially impossible to adhere to both licenses at once. You have to include a statement in your resulting license about this combined thing containing PHP code, while the GPL forbids you from placing that statement into the resulting combined license. Incompatible.
Statement 6 is interesting, because it states that the Zend section is separately licensed if you separate the thing from PHP or modify Zend itself. All this really states is that if you do mess with Zend, you need to rethink your licensing scheme. This may or may not be compatible with the GPL, depending on the resulting Zend license. However, it's most likely incompatible with the GPL, as it places an additional restriction on the use of the combined code that the GPL does not allow, namely that you have to relicense if you modify Zend itself.
Reconciliation:
Statement 5 can be reconciled with the GPL easily: Remove it. That's the only way to make the PHP license compatible there.
Statement 6 is harder. The upshot here is that you'd have to remove it form the resulting combined license and separate Zend from PHP entirely, not distributing it at all. This could be problematic at best.
Upshot:
Avoid using the PHP licensed code with GPL licensed code. Getting them to work together is essentially impossible. It's most likely easier to simply reinvent the wheel, on one side or the other.
Which is more "free":
Depends on your definition of free.
-The GPL places one major restriction on you, namely that the resulting code and changes you make to GPL code is also available under the GPL itself.
-The PHP license places restriction 5 on you, which frankly ain't much, and restriction 6, which is a tough one to deal with if you do anything whatsoever to the Zend engine. Restriction 6 is most definitely bad, except that the vast majority of users of PHP licensed code won't be modifying the Zend engine and so it won't apply to them. It's probably one of the requirements for using Zend, and while it blows, it's not unworkable.
Which would I use:
-If I used GPL code, I'm forced to use the GPL.
-If I used PHP code, I'm not forced to do shit except put in a small one liner or something.
-If I write my own code, I can do whatever I damn well please... And that's the important one here. I would personally not use nor emulate the PHP license, as it's really just a BSD license with some extra bits tossed in. I'd use a BSD license instead, if such was my intent (BSD basically puts it out there similar to being in the public domain, but with copyright retention, just in case). If I wanted the code to stay free forever, as in free for everybody to use and not free for anybody to steal, then I'd use the GPL.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
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.
Freedom of choice is deceptively attractive because people who focus on choice can easily be undermined. Consider web browsers, for instance: if we only had 3 browsers to choose from (say, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera, and Netscape) choice would be satisfied. We would not have software freedom, however, because none of those browsers are free software. They are all proprietary programs. 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.
Nobody is challenging these powers (certainly not any free software or open source advocate). But there are significant differences between the two licenses you mention, so it is important to help people make informed decisions.
Digital Citizen
This is one of the dumbest analogies ever put on Slashdot (and lord knows there have been some dumb ones).
Apparently the citizens in BSDland are actually asking that you commit violence against them (create closed source commercial products). Those masochists!! And GPLland is operating under the mistaken belief that source code is a God-given right.
Um, BSD is nothing like anarchy, and the GPL is nothing like western democracy. Try agin.
Lest you get distracted again, this is the statement you're trying to disagree with: "Given two licenses the one with the fewer strings is the more free, i.e. GPL is the less free of the two." Good luck!
There are restrictions on both -- in the US, freedom of speech is not an absolute. Under the GNU GPL, your freedom to share and modify comes with a proviso that you cannot deny recipients of distributed derivatives or verbatim copies the freedoms to share and modify the program.
Not at all. The FSF uses driving a car to help understand why restricting some freedoms are necessary to preserve others; I'll attempt to paraphrase it briefly: we cannot have all possible freedoms because some conflict. So we make choices and give up some freedoms to keep other freedoms. For instance, we are not allowed to drive anywhere we want at any speed we want. We are not allowed to drive on the sidewalks and we are not allowed to disobey the speed limit. Our freedom to do these things is curtailed because other freedoms are deemed more valuable -- the freedom to walk down the street in safety. The GNU project is about spreading software freedom to more people, so this requires a copyright license which doesn't allow anyone to strip away the freedoms of free software. Hence the GNU GPL (the license under which a lot of the GNU project's programs are distributed) has a strong copyleft.
The FSF argues, quite convincingly, that the ability to restrict what others can do with computer programs is a power not a freedom because "Freedom is being able to make decisions that affect mainly you. Power is being able to make decisions that affect others more than you. If we confuse power with freedom, we will fail to uphold real freedom.".
I don't think any free software advocate would object to the use of the new BSD license. Such programs are a gift to everyone, and therein lies the rub. Free software advocates warn against using non-copyleft free software licenses (such as the new BSD license) under most circumstances because doing so has some noteworthy practical problems (like competing against a derivative of one's own code) and because it means treating businesses like charities.
Digital Citizen
As much as I despise socialism...
...this is a load of crap. A truly libertarian philosophy puts sole control of the work in the hands of the person who creates it, to distribute as they please, under whatever license they wish. The GPL is a perfect example of libertarianism: control of the work rests in the hands of creator, and no one else. If you don't like it, you don't use it - that's where *your* choice begins and ends.
GPL maximizes the collective benefit to society at large at the expense of individual liberty. This is, by definition, a socalist philosophy.
That's also libertarian.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
You lost me here.
If I write some software and provide it to society under a BSD-style license, and then some e-e-e-vil corporation uses my software into their commercial product, how is this a cost to society as a whole?
One may argue that the BSD license allows Evil, Inc. to use the software in question without the attendant benefit of reciprocated development. The false assumption here is that the benefit would be realized if the BSD license were replaced with a GPL license.
But I doubt that this would be the case. Without the BSD license, the commercial software developer would license code from somewhere else or develop needed software in-house, avoiding the GPL in any case.
So "society as a whole" doesn't really lose anything in the BSD case. The original BSD-licensed software is still there and still BSD-licensed. So society hasn't lost that. Evil, Inc. is perhaps filling a niche that people may be willing to pay for, so society has gained that as well. Maybe not, depending on your point of view, but it's not a loss in any case.
"I have a good idea why it's hard to verify programs. They're usually wrong." --Manuel Blum, FOCS 94
You are missing the point, or possibly phrasing yours badly.
Nothing in the GPL prevents you from selling derivative works. However, for every person you sell the compiled version of that code to, you must also make the source available, under the terms of the GPL. Which means, yes, they could redistribute your code, and you might theoretically make no more profit out of it after your first sale.
So, what you're actually complaining about is the GPL restricts your freedom to use other people's hard work to save you time and money, add a little bit of your own code, and then sell the result, keeping the source to yourself and giving nothing back to the people on whose shoulders you stood.
Yes, the GPL restricts the freedom of the few to be parasites, so that the many gain other freedoms. Your freedom to swing your fist ends at my face.
It's a pretty good trade-off, don't you think?
Rgasuya aata! : I have been coding Perl and cannot tell where my fingers are now!
...Microsoft loves the "more free" BSD license (because it gives them the freedom to take the code and do an embrace-and-extend with it).
If you're doing something Microsoft loves, you really should ask yourself if you're doing the right thing.
Hanno
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.
Female Prison Rape in NY
"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.