AW: Use of Debian Linux as basis of commercially dsitributed appliance box
Ian, thank you for taking the time to give us valuable advice. We have already been in touch with our lawyer to check the circumstances of our actual application code, which also makes use of open-source software components, libraries, servers, etc. By now, I think it makes sense to also involve them explicitly regarding the Debian distribution. I just want to make sure that we're asking the right questions. We understand that you give advice on a good will basis - and we appreciate that. We also understand that asking educated people on a mailing list is not a substitute for getting specialized legal counsel. Thanks, once more. Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Kind regards Clemens Renner System Architect Dairy Health and Farm Management BU Dairy Farm Equipment GEA Farm Technologies GmbH GEA Farm Technologies Tel. +49 2383 937-298, Fax +49 2383 938-298 clemens.ren...@gea.com www.gea.com -Ursprüngliche Nachricht- Von: Ian Jackson [mailto:ijack...@chiark.greenend.org.uk] Gesendet: Montag, 28. Juli 2014 19:17 An: Renner, Clemens Cc: debian-legal@lists.debian.org; Schiefer, Werner Betreff: Re: Use of Debian Linux as basis of commercially dsitributed appliance box Renner, Clemens writes (Use of Debian Linux as basis of commercially dsitributed appliance box): --- 8 --- We like Debian and want to use it as the underlying OS for building an appliance box for our customers (one of the keywords seems to be vertical market). Do we need to take special care to comply with the Licenses involved in the standard Debian distribution, i.e. Kernel and main (as in not contrib, non-free) packages? --- 8 --- There are a number of other concerns which might be relevant. Here is a non-exhaustive list: You should make sure that you are able to know exactly which source code was used to make any specific binary, and identify that for the users, so that the users are able to download the actual corresponding source code for the binaries in the applicance. You need to include your image build systems in the source code. The above two principles mean that your builds should be automated and reproducible, not some kind of ad-hoc thing thrown together from the command line by your `build person'. You should NOT take any measures to stop users from running modified versions of the software on these applicances. For example, cryptographic signatures checked by the bootloader which prevent the user from installing their own version. You need to permit users to reverse-engineer the system. If any of the above are problems for you, then you will need to avoid some or all of the software in Debian; we don't check the licence for suitability for activities which don't conform to these (and various other) principles. Also the exact scope of the applicability of these principles may depend on the particular licence of the package; some or all of the free software principles may apply to even some or all non-free parts of your system. I think you should perhaps consult some laywers. I'm sure the Software Freedom Law Centre will be able to recommend someone. Note that contributors to Debian (which includes me, and the others who have replied) do not intend to take responsibility for your use of the software; we check the licences for our own purposes and to serve our own principles. If your business it at stake we won't be held legally responsible for any mistakes or misunderstandings. Regards, Ian. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/d9980d6adb62bd4e830067ea90803e19aec92...@sv42080oel6022.emea.corp.geaag.com
Re: [PHP-QA] Debian and the PHP license
On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 3:55 PM, James Wade jpsw...@gmail.com wrote: Hi all, There seems to be some confusion over the PHP License. We had this bug report into a PEAR project which outlines that Debian cannot include any projects that fall under the PHP License. * https://pear.php.net/bugs/bug.php?id=20172 You will find details of the reason behind it here: * https://ftp-master.debian.org/REJECT-FAQ.html You have a PHP add-on package (any php script/app/thing, not PHP itself) and it's licensed only under the standard PHP license. That license, up to the 3.x which is actually out, is not really usable for anything else than PHP itself. I've mailed our -legal list about that and got only one response, which basically supported my view on this. Basically this license talks only about PHP, the PHP Group, and includes Zend Engine, so its not applicable to anything else. And even worse, older versions include the nice ad-clause. One good solution here is to suggest a license change to your upstream, as they clearly wanted a free one. LGPL or BSD seems to be what they want After a quick search, I quickly found that this isn't an isolated case... * https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=728196 * https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=752530 * http://pear.php.net/bugs/bug.php?id=20316 * https://www.mail-archive.com/debian-bugs-rc@lists.debian. org/msg362847.html * https://github.com/nicolasff/phpredis/issues/384 Judging by the email to legal sent almost a decade ago this situation is in need of a review... * https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/08/msg00128.html I can't understand this line of thought in this context: GPL enforces many restrictions on what can and cannot be done with the licensed code. The PHP developers decided to release PHP under a much more loose license (Apache-style), to help PHP become as popular as possible. - http://php.net/license/ I also read that Rasmus Lerdorf issued a statement which said that the PHP license is pretty much identical to the Apache license. * http://pear.php.net/manual/en/faq.devs.php I've also discovered that this is not the first instance that this issue has been discussed: * http://lwn.net/Articles/604630/ All this has raised some questions: 1. Is 'The PHP License, version 3.01' an Open Source license, certified by the Open Source Initiative? Their website only lists 'PHP License 3.0 (PHP-3.0)'. 2. When was 'The PHP License, version 3.01' released? 3. Can 'The PHP License, version 3.01' be used for anything other than PHP itself? 4. Are there any legal implications of changing a project from 'The PHP License, version 3.01' to LGPL or BSD? 5. Is the PHP license clear enough to ensure that it is correctly applied to extensions? 6. Why would the (Apache-style) PHP License be listed by Debian as a 'serious violation' yet the Apache license is not? Thanks. Hi, please see the thread at http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.php.pecl.devel/11046 and if you want to reply I think pecl-dev@ is a better place than php-qa@ Most of your links are old and some of the previous problems claimed by debian was addressed with php license version 3.01. from the replies on the debian mailing lists it seems that this decision on dropping any project using the php license distributed outside of php-src is controversial to say the least. I've tried to start a discussion to find some kind of resolution, but most of the replies from php-dev side was that the current license is fine, and we don't need to change anything, while we didn't got any reply from the debian-legal (apart from the mail from Francesco Poli who explicitly stated that not part of the debian project and not speaking on behalf of it). Based on the lack of clarification and cooperation from their side, I think the consensus on our part will be to keep everything as-is, and at the end of the day, it is up to the package maintainer to decide if they take the advice from the debian package maintainers and change the license for their project. -- Ferenc Kovács @Tyr43l - http://tyrael.hu
Re: [PHP-QA] Debian and the PHP license
debian-legal isn't the body that makes this decision, you might want ftpmas...@ftp-master.debian.org Thanks, Paul On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 10:47 AM, Ferenc Kovacs tyr...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 3:55 PM, James Wade jpsw...@gmail.com wrote: Hi all, There seems to be some confusion over the PHP License. We had this bug report into a PEAR project which outlines that Debian cannot include any projects that fall under the PHP License. * https://pear.php.net/bugs/bug.php?id=20172 You will find details of the reason behind it here: * https://ftp-master.debian.org/REJECT-FAQ.html You have a PHP add-on package (any php script/app/thing, not PHP itself) and it's licensed only under the standard PHP license. That license, up to the 3.x which is actually out, is not really usable for anything else than PHP itself. I've mailed our -legal list about that and got only one response, which basically supported my view on this. Basically this license talks only about PHP, the PHP Group, and includes Zend Engine, so its not applicable to anything else. And even worse, older versions include the nice ad-clause. One good solution here is to suggest a license change to your upstream, as they clearly wanted a free one. LGPL or BSD seems to be what they want After a quick search, I quickly found that this isn't an isolated case... * https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=728196 * https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=752530 * http://pear.php.net/bugs/bug.php?id=20316 * https://www.mail-archive.com/debian-bugs-rc@lists.debian.org/msg362847.html * https://github.com/nicolasff/phpredis/issues/384 Judging by the email to legal sent almost a decade ago this situation is in need of a review... * https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/08/msg00128.html I can't understand this line of thought in this context: GPL enforces many restrictions on what can and cannot be done with the licensed code. The PHP developers decided to release PHP under a much more loose license (Apache-style), to help PHP become as popular as possible. - http://php.net/license/ I also read that Rasmus Lerdorf issued a statement which said that the PHP license is pretty much identical to the Apache license. * http://pear.php.net/manual/en/faq.devs.php I've also discovered that this is not the first instance that this issue has been discussed: * http://lwn.net/Articles/604630/ All this has raised some questions: 1. Is 'The PHP License, version 3.01' an Open Source license, certified by the Open Source Initiative? Their website only lists 'PHP License 3.0 (PHP-3.0)'. 2. When was 'The PHP License, version 3.01' released? 3. Can 'The PHP License, version 3.01' be used for anything other than PHP itself? 4. Are there any legal implications of changing a project from 'The PHP License, version 3.01' to LGPL or BSD? 5. Is the PHP license clear enough to ensure that it is correctly applied to extensions? 6. Why would the (Apache-style) PHP License be listed by Debian as a 'serious violation' yet the Apache license is not? Thanks. Hi, please see the thread at http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.php.pecl.devel/11046 and if you want to reply I think pecl-dev@ is a better place than php-qa@ Most of your links are old and some of the previous problems claimed by debian was addressed with php license version 3.01. from the replies on the debian mailing lists it seems that this decision on dropping any project using the php license distributed outside of php-src is controversial to say the least. I've tried to start a discussion to find some kind of resolution, but most of the replies from php-dev side was that the current license is fine, and we don't need to change anything, while we didn't got any reply from the debian-legal (apart from the mail from Francesco Poli who explicitly stated that not part of the debian project and not speaking on behalf of it). Based on the lack of clarification and cooperation from their side, I think the consensus on our part will be to keep everything as-is, and at the end of the day, it is up to the package maintainer to decide if they take the advice from the debian package maintainers and change the license for their project. -- Ferenc Kovács @Tyr43l - http://tyrael.hu -- All programmers are playwrights, and all computers are lousy actors. #define sizeof(x) rand() :wq -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/cao6p2qscni8ha54jmd6rqs7uox9xaljugj0+smqtjnputkd...@mail.gmail.com
Re: [PHP-QA] Debian and the PHP license
On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 05:20:21PM +0200, Ferenc Kovacs wrote: If you feel to dispute this please take your *well-formed* and *well-thought* arguments to debian-legal. ... to discuss it. d-legal is a proper venue for *discussing* it, but it's not the right one to discuss the actual critera for archive fitness. Which is likely why you didn't get a reply. So I was under the impression that debian-legal is the correct list to contact. debian-legal has no delegated authority to make such decisions for the archive. From the mails from Ondřej it seems that the reject decision was made by the ftpmaster team, but as the argument for the decision was a legal one, so I think that debian-legal is appropriate. ... to discuss it. Not decide on critera. -- Ferenc Kovács @Tyr43l - [4]http://tyrael.hu Cheers, Paul -- .''`. Paul Tagliamonte paul...@debian.org | Proud Debian Developer : :' : 4096R / 8F04 9AD8 2C92 066C 7352 D28A 7B58 5B30 807C 2A87 `. `'` http://people.debian.org/~paultag `- http://people.debian.org/~paultag/conduct-statement.txt signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [PHP-QA] Debian and the PHP license
On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 5:11 PM, Paul Tagliamonte paul...@ubuntu.com wrote: debian-legal isn't the body that makes this decision, you might want ftpmas...@ftp-master.debian.org Thanks, Paul Hi Paul, To quote Ondřej from http://www.mail-archive.com/debian-bugs-rc@lists.debian.org/msg360686.html If you feel to dispute this please take your *well-formed* and *well-thought* arguments to debian-legal. So I was under the impression that debian-legal is the correct list to contact. From the mails from Ondřej it seems that the reject decision was made by the ftpmaster team, but as the argument for the decision was a legal one, so I think that debian-legal is appropriate. -- Ferenc Kovács @Tyr43l - http://tyrael.hu
Re: [PHP-QA] Debian and the PHP license
On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 5:23 PM, Paul Tagliamonte paul...@debian.org wrote: On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 05:20:21PM +0200, Ferenc Kovacs wrote: If you feel to dispute this please take your *well-formed* and *well-thought* arguments to debian-legal. ... to discuss it. d-legal is a proper venue for *discussing* it, but it's not the right one to discuss the actual critera for archive fitness. Which is likely why you didn't get a reply. nobody participated in the discussion from your side. So I was under the impression that debian-legal is the correct list to contact. debian-legal has no delegated authority to make such decisions for the archive. I didn't said anything about debian-legal having the authority to do any decision. Ondrej claimed that the decision was made on legal concerns, and that any further discussion should happen on debian-legal, which kind-of made sense. From your reply I'm not sure what are you arguing about. That this isn't a legal problem, so no reason to discuss it on debian-legal, or you think that there isn't much to discuss there, because you have no power over the decision? I've find it a bit disturbing, that ftpmasters can make a decision on legal grounds(which is the probably the highest priority for debian as far as I'm concerned), without any backing from debian-legal(the original thread one debian-legal got a single reply which doesn't supported the reject. https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/08/msg00130.html), years later ftpmasters can decide to drop a bunch of packages based on the legal problem and point to debian-legal@ for further discussion where first nobody replies, then we are told that it isn't the proper place to write and that we should write to the same people who made the decision. o.O From the mails from Ondřej it seems that the reject decision was made by the ftpmaster team, but as the argument for the decision was a legal one, so I think that debian-legal is appropriate. ... to discuss it. Not decide on critera. sigh. you are trying a nice job making any kind of discussion as talking to a brick wall. where did I said anything about you making any decision? I was talking about why did it seemed reasonable to follow Ondrej's advice and write to debian-legal@ to discuss a decision made on legal grounds to discuss the decision and find a solution satisfying all parties. -- Ferenc Kovács @Tyr43l - http://tyrael.hu
Re: [PHP-QA] Debian and the PHP license
Ferenc Kovacs tyr...@gmail.com wrote: I've find it a bit disturbing, that ftpmasters can make a decision on legal grounds(which is the probably the highest priority for debian as far as I'm concerned), without any backing from debian-legal debian-legal has no authority to decide anything. It is just a mailing list. We can discuss things here day and night and ftp-masters can ignore it. With that said, debian-legal can be useful when issues are clear-cut. For example, if someone asks if the Apache 2.0 license is compatible with the GPL (no for GPL 2.0, yes for GPL 3.0). Think of debian-legal as the secretary for ftp-masters. We can sometimes divine what they are thinking, but the final word belongs to ftp-masters. In any case, in the interest of making this email constructive, my take on the PHP license is that it does need to be fixed. From ftp-masters REJECT-FAQ, they also think so. So my advice would be to just use a well known, existing license and be done with it. Judging from the existing PHP license, the closest thing would be the 3 clause BSD license http://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause Apache 2.0 would also be a good choice. Now, I understand that changing licenses is a huge chore, and the benefits can sometimes be intangible. The main benefit is that you will never have to deal with us again ;) Cheers, Walter Landry wlan...@caltech.edu -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140729.121653.1175255053010754152.wlan...@caltech.edu
Re: [PECL-DEV] Re: [PHP-QA] Debian and the PHP license
On 07/29/2014 03:16 PM, Walter Landry wrote: Ferenc Kovacs tyr...@gmail.com wrote: I've find it a bit disturbing, that ftpmasters can make a decision on legal grounds(which is the probably the highest priority for debian as far as I'm concerned), without any backing from debian-legal debian-legal has no authority to decide anything. It is just a mailing list. We can discuss things here day and night and ftp-masters can ignore it. With that said, debian-legal can be useful when issues are clear-cut. For example, if someone asks if the Apache 2.0 license is compatible with the GPL (no for GPL 2.0, yes for GPL 3.0). Think of debian-legal as the secretary for ftp-masters. We can sometimes divine what they are thinking, but the final word belongs to ftp-masters. In any case, in the interest of making this email constructive, my take on the PHP license is that it does need to be fixed. From ftp-masters REJECT-FAQ, they also think so. So my advice would be to just use a well known, existing license and be done with it. Judging from the existing PHP license, the closest thing would be the 3 clause BSD license http://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause Apache 2.0 would also be a good choice. Now, I understand that changing licenses is a huge chore, and the benefits can sometimes be intangible. The main benefit is that you will never have to deal with us again ;) We will not be changing the license to Apache 2.0 I see absolutely no problem with PHP projects distributed from *.php.net carrying the PHP license. The license talks about PHP Software which we define as software you get from/via *.php.net. We support external repos such as github, but they are still linked back to php.net via their pecl.php.net entries, for example. For things that aren't distributed via pecl.php.net, pear.php.net or www.php.net itself, I can see the argument, but those are not projects we can do anything about. -Rasmus -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/53d813e5.5030...@lerdorf.com
Re: [PHP-QA] Debian and the PHP license
Le Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 04:47:34PM +0200, Ferenc Kovacs a écrit : from the replies on the debian mailing lists it seems that this decision on dropping any project using the php license distributed outside of php-src is controversial to say the least. Hello Ferenc, from an outsider point of view (I do not maintain PHP packages in Debian), my impresssion is also that the removal of PHP packages is controversial. I guess you also saw the LWN article here: http://lwn.net/Articles/604630/ The good news is that things can resolve without formal decision: the immediate cause for removing some PHP packages from our Testing distribution (that represents our future release, not the Debian archive as a whole) is that bugs of severity serious were filed against them to represent the licensing question. If one closes these bugs or downgrade their severity, then the packages automatically (modulo a small delay) become part of Testing again. This already has been done for packages such as php-memcached, and could be done for others. Thank you for your patience ! -- Charles Plessy Debian Med packaging team, http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-med Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140729223824.gc31...@falafel.plessy.net
Re: [PHP-QA] Debian and the PHP license
Rasmus Lerdorf ras...@lerdorf.com writes: I see absolutely no problem with PHP projects distributed from *.php.net carrying the PHP license. The license talks about PHP Software which we define as software you get from/via *.php.net. Specifically, the license text URL:http://php.net/license/3_01.txt has this clause: 6. Redistributions of any form whatsoever must retain the following acknowledgment: This product includes PHP software, freely available from http://www.php.net/software/. Nowhere is “PHP software” defined in the license. Will you update the license to make your above definition explicit in the license terms? We support external repos such as github, but they are still linked back to php.net via their pecl.php.net entries, for example. For things that aren't distributed via pecl.php.net, pear.php.net or www.php.net itself, I can see the argument, but those are not projects we can do anything about. The problem is exacerbated, though, by the specific license terms. The license terms do not apply sensibly outside your stated definition; yet many software works begin outside that definition, and only later make their way to the locations you mention. This distinction is *not* the case for more widely-accepted license terms, so the distinction is easy to miss. This does not need to be the case; it is made the case by the specific terms of this license. That is a problem which can be addressed by changing the terms of the license to be generally applicable. -- \ “Those who write software only for pay should go hurt some | `\ other field.” —Erik Naggum, in _gnu.misc.discuss_ | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/85k36v3abc@benfinney.id.au
Re: [PHP-QA] Debian and the PHP license
On 30/07/14 10:21, Ben Finney wrote: Rasmus Lerdorf ras...@lerdorf.com writes: I see absolutely no problem with PHP projects distributed from *.php.net carrying the PHP license. The license talks about PHP Software which we define as software you get from/via *.php.net. Specifically, the license text URL:http://php.net/license/3_01.txt has this clause: 6. Redistributions of any form whatsoever must retain the following acknowledgment: This product includes PHP software, freely available from http://www.php.net/software/. Nowhere is “PHP software” defined in the license. Will you update the license to make your above definition explicit in the license terms? PHP software doesn't need to be defined. The phrase is not used in the license except as an acknowledgement that must accompany any redistributions. It could just as easily require that any redistributions must have the acknowledgement This project contains giraffes, which are a type of fish, and the software could still be considered free. If you're worried about having to include false information with your software product, you could say something along the lines of The below notices are untrue, but are requirements of various FOSS licenses. The license terms do not apply sensibly outside your stated definition; yet many software works begin outside that definition, and only later make their way to the locations you mention. This distinction is *not* the case for more widely-accepted license terms, so the distinction is easy to miss. When applied to software that is not available from *.php.net, the license terms may not be sensible, but they still can be followed. The only problem that I can see with the license is the phrase: This software consists of voluntary contributions made by many individuals on behalf of the PHP Group. The word 'voluntary' may not apply to all contributions made by individuals made on behalf on the PHP group. Also, not everyone that uses the PHP license is able to act on behalf of the PHP group. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/53d87ca0.3000...@bitmessage.ch
Re: [PECL-DEV] Re: [PHP-QA] Debian and the PHP license
hi Walter, On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 9:16 PM, Walter Landry wlan...@caltech.edu wrote: Ferenc Kovacs tyr...@gmail.com wrote: I've find it a bit disturbing, that ftpmasters can make a decision on legal grounds(which is the probably the highest priority for debian as far as I'm concerned), without any backing from debian-legal debian-legal has no authority to decide anything. It is just a mailing list. We can discuss things here day and night and ftp-masters can ignore it. With that said, debian-legal can be useful when issues are clear-cut. For example, if someone asks if the Apache 2.0 license is compatible with the GPL (no for GPL 2.0, yes for GPL 3.0). Think of debian-legal as the secretary for ftp-masters. We can sometimes divine what they are thinking, but the final word belongs to ftp-masters. In any case, in the interest of making this email constructive, my take on the PHP license is that it does need to be fixed. From ftp-masters REJECT-FAQ, they also think so. So my advice would be to just use a well known, existing license and be done with it. Judging from the existing PHP license, the closest thing would be the 3 clause BSD license http://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause Apache 2.0 would also be a good choice. Now, I understand that changing licenses is a huge chore, and the benefits can sometimes be intangible. The main benefit is that you will never have to deal with us again ;) As Rasmus, and I, said numerous times, the PHP License is a perfectly valid choice as long as the software are distributed under *.php.net. I see this move as yet another attempt to force developers to abandon a totally valid license in the name of the Debian ideal, Free Softwares. I cannot blame anyone willing to reach this goal but as a matter of fact, there is no issue with the PHP license, not anymore since 3.01. And about dealing with Debian about that, well, Debian has actually more to lose than any other 3rd parties. Let focus on getting the web stack rocks on Debian instead. Cheers, -- Pierre @pierrejoye | http://www.libgd.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/caezptu7yan3y_cht3sfgclrjrg07wg3yguhwzk1g0b86f9o...@mail.gmail.com
Re: [PHP-QA] Debian and the PHP license
Riley Baird bm-2cvqnduybau5do2dfjtrn7zbaj246s4...@bitmessage.ch writes: On 30/07/14 10:21, Ben Finney wrote: Rasmus Lerdorf ras...@lerdorf.com writes: I see absolutely no problem with PHP projects distributed from *.php.net carrying the PHP license. The license talks about PHP Software which we define as software you get from/via *.php.net. […] It could just as easily require that any redistributions must have the acknowledgement This project contains giraffes, which are a type of fish, and the software could still be considered free. If you're worried about having to include false information with your software product, you could say something along the lines of The below notices are untrue, but are requirements of various FOSS licenses. You're advocating a position, then, that the PHP license can require recipients to make false, and even nonsensical, claims, and that this is not a problem to be addressed by improving the license terms. Is that the position of the PHP Group: that a requirement for the recipient to make false claims is “absolutely no problem” of the license? […] When applied to software that is not available from *.php.net, the license terms may not be sensible, but they still can be followed. Is the fact they can't sensibly be followed not a problem to be addressed by improving the license terms? The only problem that I can see with the license is the phrase: This software consists of voluntary contributions made by many individuals on behalf of the PHP Group. Thanks, I agree that's a problem. It doesn't belong in the license (it has nothing to do with the permissions granted to the recipient), but rather belongs in the copyright statement for the specific work. The license would be improved – made clearer and more generally applicable – by removing that clause from the license and placing it instead in the copyright statement. -- \ “I put contact lenses in my dog's eyes. They had little | `\ pictures of cats on them. Then I took one out and he ran around | _o__) in circles.” —Steven Wright | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/85y4vbct3f@benfinney.id.au
