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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."'"
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.
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
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..
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.
quit calling FUD when people don't do things the RMS way.
I call FUD the way Andi implies things the GPL does not say. People who look up to Andi will get distorted impressions about the GPL. It's crap like that that makes developers and software business owners go "GPL? uuh that's baaad" without even knowing what it's about.
I don't deny anybody the right to think differently than RMS. I'm not a huge fan of RMS myself, and I know very well the GPL isn't right for everything. But there's so much misconceptions about the GPL, and I think prominent people like Andi have a duty to speak some sort of truth about it. Once people know what it allows them to do or not do, they are free to not use it, but at least the decision will be made on more than bullshit they once read or heard somewhere.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
> The GPL is very clear
Umm have you every tried to read the GPL?
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.
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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Here is the PHP license:
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, is permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
Viral clause! Just like GPL. Score 1 for PHP, and 1 for GPL.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
Another viral clause! I think it can be combined with the first though, very similar. But it means you can distribute binaries without having to distribute the source code (unlike GPL) Score: PHP 2, GPL 1.
3. The name "PHP" must not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without prior permission from the PHP Group. This does not apply to add-on libraries or tools that work in conjunction with PHP. In such a case the PHP name may be used to indicate that the product supports PHP.
Trademark restriction! The GPL *does not* have such a restriction. Score one for GPL (PHP:2 GPL:2).
4. The PHP Group may publish revised and/or new versions of the license from time to time...[snip] No one other than the PHP Group has the right to modify the terms applicable to covered code created under this License.
"You may use this version or any later version", combined with "you may not change the license" GPL has this too, one point each: (PHP:3, GPL:3).
5. Redistributions of any form whatsoever must retain the following acknowledgment: "This product includes PHP, freely available from http://www.php.net/".
Uh-oh, another requirement that the GPL doesn't have. Score one for GPL (PHP:3, GPL:4).
6. The software incorporates the Zend Engine, a product of Zend Technologies, Ltd. ("Zend"). The Zend Engine is licensed to the PHP Association (pursuant to a grant from Zend that can be found at http://www.php.net/license/ZendGrant/) for distribution to you under this license agreement, only as a part of PHP. In the event that you separate the Zend Engine (or any portion thereof) from the rest of the software, or modify the Zend Engine, or any portion thereof, your use of the separated or modified Zend Engine software shall not be governed by this license, and instead shall be governed by the license set forth at http://www.zend.com/license/ZendLicense/.
Interesting, a mutating trap-door license.. if you change the code, in some circumstances you may need to *change license* too! Ouch! Incorporating text of another license by reference! Ouch ouch! Score two for GPL. (PHP:3, GPL:6).
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE PHP DEVELOPMENT TEAM ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, [snip]
Yup, everybody has this.
So, the license is viral, doesn't allow changing the license (but is non-copyleft because it doesn't require source code), and has restrictions that the GPL doesn't have... tell me again why this is a *better* license than the GPL?
It's funny to see so many people sticking up for this license, just to get a dig in at RMS.
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"?