Considering PHP 4.0 is the most free PHP ever, forking PHP in general and calling the fork FreePHP in particular would both be pretty silly ideas. Apache is not GPL'd. Time to start FreeApache? There's open source beyond GPL. In fact, there's a LOT of open source beyond GPL. Try reading and understanding what's wrong with the GPL before you bash months and months of work conducted by the PHP and Zend development teams to bring you a very good opensource product for free. Consult http://www.php.net/version4/license-FAQ.php to understand why all the license concerns people have raised on slashdot are anywhere between baseless and pure myths.
That's simply not true - you seem to be saying things without having any real knowledge about the serious differences between the GPL and the QPL. Even though they're both opensource licenses, they're very different from each other.
Read my earlier reply at: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=99/07/20/125 8251&threshold=0&commentsort=0&mode=thread &pid=61#75
About GDBM and other GNU software, this is very very minor annoyance. Building binary modules in future PHP 4.0 versions is going to be very easy, so distributing a pre-made GDBM module for PHP, under the GPL isn't going to be a problem at all.
The GPL was never meant to allow the original authors of the software to have any special rights over it. It's considered as a 'Copyleft' license, you're giving up all and any of your rights over the code, stating how it should be used afterwards. Moreover, the GPL is very restrictive, and would not allow PHP itself to be reused in commercial applications (since the GPL is 'contagious', if Zend was released under the GPL, so should PHP, and so should anything using it, which isn't what we want). The GPL simply isn't such a great license. It's good for many things, and bad for others. If you look around you, you'd find that great many opensource packages aren't released under the GPL, but under BSD derivatives or other opensource licenses. Ever looked at the Apache httpd license? Or MySQL's license?
The QPL was designed to be an opensource license that retains the authors' copyright over the code, while letting everybody else use it for non commercial purposes. In our case, you can use it indirectly for commercial purposes through PHP or other opensource packages that may use it in the future, but you cannot use it directly in commercial applications. For that, you would have to talk to us (Andi&Zeev) first.
That's exactly what we wanted the license to say, and we were happy to find a ready made, proof read license that is widely accepted by just about any opensource body in the world.
That's simply not true. You can use GDBM and any other GNU software with PHP 4.0, just as you could with PHP 3.0. Even if we tried, we could hardly mess up the PHP license that would prevent you from using GNU software with it.
What's the effect then?
The effect is that since PHP is no longer distributed under the GPL, but the PHP license, we can no longer distribute GNU software with it, in the same package. If you obtain the GNU software in other ways (e.g., ftping it from ftp.gnu.org; GDBM was never really distributed inside PHP anyway) - you're free to use the two packages as much as you'd like. PHP 4.0 supports GDBM just like its predecessors, and there are no legal issues involved in using this or any other GNU package with it.
One last note - it is Zend that's distributed under the QPL, not PHP. PHP is distributed under the PHP license (which points you to the Zend license if you wish to see the license under which Zend's distributed). Simply put, end users of PHP (including site builders that sell their sites) should not be concerned in any way with the Zend license. It hardly has anything to do with them. The Zend license affects mostly two groups of people - people who publish patches for it, and commercial companies that wish to write applications (C applications, not PHP applications) around it.
We'll publish a FAQ for the two licenses soon, because we see this is bothering people, when it really shouldn't.
The Zend license only concerns C software written around it. You can write and sell as many PHP scripts as you'd like without requesting permission from anyone!
As a matter of fact, the PHP 4.0 license is much less restrictive than the original PHP 3.0 license was, and much less restrictive than the GPL.
The QPL only allows us to license the Zend engine to commercial companies, and has no effect whatsoever on PHP 4.0 nor its users.
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Considering PHP 4.0 is the most free PHP ever, forking PHP in general and calling the fork FreePHP in particular would both be pretty silly ideas. Apache is not GPL'd. Time to start FreeApache? There's open source beyond GPL. In fact, there's a LOT of open source beyond GPL. Try reading and understanding what's wrong with the GPL before you bash months and months of work conducted by the PHP and Zend development teams to bring you a very good opensource product for free. Consult http://www.php.net/version4/license-FAQ.php to understand why all the license concerns people have raised on slashdot are anywhere between baseless and pure myths.
That's no longer true for PHP 4.0.
That's simply not true - you seem to be saying things without having any real knowledge about the serious differences between the GPL and the QPL. Even though they're both opensource licenses, they're very different from each other.
5 8251&threshold=0&commentsort=0&mode=thread &pid=61#75
Read my earlier reply at:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=99/07/20/12
About GDBM and other GNU software, this is very very minor annoyance. Building binary modules in future PHP 4.0 versions is going to be very easy, so distributing a pre-made GDBM module for PHP, under the GPL isn't going to be a problem at all.
The GPL was never meant to allow the original authors of the software to have any special rights over it. It's considered as a 'Copyleft' license, you're giving up all and any of your rights over the code, stating how it should be used afterwards. Moreover, the GPL is very restrictive, and would not allow PHP itself to be reused in commercial applications (since the GPL is 'contagious', if Zend was released under the GPL, so should PHP, and so should anything using it, which isn't what we want). The GPL simply isn't such a great license. It's good for many things, and bad for others. If you look around you, you'd find that great many opensource packages aren't released under the GPL, but under BSD derivatives or other opensource licenses. Ever looked at the Apache httpd license? Or MySQL's license?
The QPL was designed to be an opensource license that retains the authors' copyright over the code, while letting everybody else use it for non commercial purposes. In our case, you can use it indirectly for commercial purposes through PHP or other opensource packages that may use it in the future, but you cannot use it directly in commercial applications. For that, you would have to talk to us (Andi&Zeev) first.
That's exactly what we wanted the license to say, and we were happy to find a ready made, proof read license that is widely accepted by just about any opensource body in the world.
That's simply not true. You can use GDBM and any
other GNU software with PHP 4.0, just as you could
with PHP 3.0. Even if we tried, we could hardly
mess up the PHP license that would prevent you
from using GNU software with it.
What's the effect then?
The effect is that since PHP is no longer distributed under the GPL, but the PHP license, we can no longer distribute GNU software with it, in the same package. If you obtain the GNU software in other ways (e.g., ftping it from ftp.gnu.org; GDBM was never really distributed inside PHP anyway) - you're free to use the two packages as much as you'd like. PHP 4.0 supports GDBM just like its predecessors, and there are no legal issues involved in using this or any other GNU package with it.
One last note - it is Zend that's distributed under the QPL, not PHP. PHP is distributed under the PHP license (which points you to the Zend license if you wish to see the license under which Zend's distributed).
Simply put, end users of PHP (including site builders that sell their sites) should not be concerned in any way with the Zend license. It hardly has anything to do with them. The Zend license affects mostly two groups of people - people who publish patches for it, and commercial companies that wish to write applications (C applications, not PHP applications) around it.
We'll publish a FAQ for the two licenses soon, because we see this is bothering people, when it really shouldn't.
You're wrong :)
The Zend license only concerns C software written
around it. You can write and sell as many PHP
scripts as you'd like without requesting
permission from anyone!
As a matter of fact, the PHP 4.0 license is much
less restrictive than the original PHP 3.0 license
was, and much less restrictive than the GPL.
The QPL only allows us to license the Zend engine
to commercial companies, and has no effect whatsoever on PHP 4.0 nor its users.