Re: PHP licence SFLC questions draft v4
Hi FTP masters, Now that the archive is frozen, could you please take some time to review this discussion? Thanks, Lucas On 09/10/14 at 13:46 +0200, Lucas Nussbaum wrote: Hi, On 08/10/14 at 12:17 +0200, Mateusz Jończyk wrote: W dniu 21.08.2014 o 20:08, Lucas Nussbaum pisze: Hi, First, thanks a lot to Ian for working on this draft, which (I think) provides a nice summary of the situation around the PHP license. [snip] That's indeed a very good point, which I already raised with Ian earlier this month. Ftpmasters are the ones responsible for making decisions about acceptable software licenses in Debian. The advice provided by SFLC is extremely valuable to us, and should generally be followed, but it's still only advice. So I'll wait for Ftpmasters (Cced) to review and ACK the current draft before forwarding those questions to SFLC, to ensure that the questions accurately match and cover our concerns. Lucas Any progress on this? It has been over one month since last activity. We are still waiting for ftpmasters' review. Lucas signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: PHP licence SFLC questions draft v4
Hi, On 08/10/14 at 12:17 +0200, Mateusz Jończyk wrote: W dniu 21.08.2014 o 20:08, Lucas Nussbaum pisze: Hi, First, thanks a lot to Ian for working on this draft, which (I think) provides a nice summary of the situation around the PHP license. [snip] That's indeed a very good point, which I already raised with Ian earlier this month. Ftpmasters are the ones responsible for making decisions about acceptable software licenses in Debian. The advice provided by SFLC is extremely valuable to us, and should generally be followed, but it's still only advice. So I'll wait for Ftpmasters (Cced) to review and ACK the current draft before forwarding those questions to SFLC, to ensure that the questions accurately match and cover our concerns. Lucas Any progress on this? It has been over one month since last activity. We are still waiting for ftpmasters' review. Lucas signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: PHP licence SFLC questions draft v4
W dniu 21.08.2014 o 20:08, Lucas Nussbaum pisze: Hi, First, thanks a lot to Ian for working on this draft, which (I think) provides a nice summary of the situation around the PHP license. [snip] That's indeed a very good point, which I already raised with Ian earlier this month. Ftpmasters are the ones responsible for making decisions about acceptable software licenses in Debian. The advice provided by SFLC is extremely valuable to us, and should generally be followed, but it's still only advice. So I'll wait for Ftpmasters (Cced) to review and ACK the current draft before forwarding those questions to SFLC, to ensure that the questions accurately match and cover our concerns. Lucas Any progress on this? It has been over one month since last activity. Greetings, Mateusz Jończyk signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: PHP licence SFLC questions draft v4
Draft question for SFLC: (there are no changes since v3 apart from fixes to the numbering of some section cross-references) Some members of the Debian project have some concerns about the PHP licence. These worries are dismissed by other members and by relevant upstreams. We would like some advice. We are concerned here with the PHP 3.01 Licences, which can be found here: http://php.net/license/3_01.txt There are three concerns (I, II and III, below), which need to be read with some context (IV, below): I. Requirement to perhaps-falsely acknowledge: Paragraph 6 of the main licence text requires this notice: This product includes PHP software, freely available from http://www.php.net/software/. This is probably unproblematic for PHP itself. However, most PHP addons are also distributed under the PHP licence. The worry is that putting that statement in the copyright information for a PHP addon package might be making a false statement, since (i) the package itself does not include PHP and (ii) the addon may not in fact be available via that URL. Counterarguments which may be relevant or have been put forward include: (a) A licensor who uses this licence obviously did not intend the licencees to make a false statement, and the requirement in the licence should be read down accordingly. (b) The word `product' does not refer to a specific package but the to the system as a whole, including PHP itself. (c) PHP addon packages (at least those whose upstream versions are available from www.php.net) should be regarded as `PHP software' for the purposes of this statement. (But what if the addon later ceases to be distributed from www.php.net, or was never so distributed?) We have the following questions: Q1. What is the best approach for Debian and its downstreams to take to comply with this licence ? Should we always include the statement as requested ? Q2. If the answer to Q1 is to always include the statement, does including this statement pose any ethical, legal or practical risk to anyone in the Free Software community ? Is it fair to say that the statement is or can be materially false or misleading ? Q3. Do the answers to these questions depend on whether the addon is currently, or was ever, distributed via http://www.php.net/software/ ? II. Inaccuracy of the disclaimer text: The warranty disclaimer text (in capitals after para 6 of the licence) says that `THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE PHP DEVELOPMENT TEAM' etc. The licence itself (para 1) requires this text to be included. When the PHP licence is used for software which is not provided by the PHP development team, the statement appears to be inaccurate. Q4. Does including this statement pose any ethical, legal or practical risk in the case where the software is _not_ in fact written or provided by the PHP Development Team ? Note that in Debian we do not normally worry whether warranty disclaimers are effective in protecting Debian contributors. So we are not interested in whether the warranty disclaimer does its job, only in whether it poses additional risks (beyond those which we would hypothetically face if it wasn't present at all) by virtue of it containing an apparently inaccurate statement. III. Restrictions on the name `PHP' Debian routinely modifies all the software that we distribute, and we expect our downstreams to further modify it. (Because we want the freedom to modify to be available not only to us, but also to all of those downstreams, we have a practice of refusing to submit our modifications for approval and declining to accept any Debian-specific permissions.) Paragraphs 3 and 4 can be read to mean that Debian should not be distributing its modified versions of PHP itself, and of PHP addons, under the name `PHP'. (Note that PHP is not a trademark - this restriction is applied through the copyright licence.) We have been informally assured by members of the PHP community that this is not the intent and that the PHP project does not want us to rename things. Similar situations often arise in relation to trademarks. Our usual approach in such cases has been to rely on the informal assurances, and not seek any kind of formal trademark licence amendment. However, we remain prepared to rename the software. If we receive a formal legal request or threat from a trademark holder, or we hear of our downstreams receiving such communications, we will rename the software to avoid any potential infringement of the trademark. For example, Mozilla insisted on prior written approval of patches, so our version of Firefox is called Iceweasel. Our reactive rather than proactive approach has served us and our downstreams very well. Q5. Does the fact that the PHP licence conditions about the use of the PHP name are contained in the actual copyright licence, rather than in a separate trademark licence, significantly increase the risks we would face if we had a
Re: PHP licence SFLC questions draft v4
Ian Jackson ijack...@chiark.greenend.org.uk (2014-08-21): Draft question for SFLC: (there are no changes since v3 apart from fixes to the numbering of some section cross-references) Some members of the Debian project have some concerns about the PHP licence. These worries are dismissed by other members and by relevant upstreams. We would like some advice. We are concerned here with the PHP 3.01 Licences, which can be found here: http://php.net/license/3_01.txt I might have missed them, but I don't think there were any replies to Charles' question in 20140801231037.ga8...@falafel.plessy.net. Who are “some members” and “we”? Mraw, KiBi. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: PHP licence SFLC questions draft v4
Cyril Brulebois writes (Re: PHP licence SFLC questions draft v4): Ian Jackson ijack...@chiark.greenend.org.uk (2014-08-21): We are concerned here with the PHP 3.01 Licences, which can be found here: http://php.net/license/3_01.txt I might have missed them, but I don't think there were any replies to Charles' question in 20140801231037.ga8...@falafel.plessy.net. Who are “some members” and “we”? `Some members' are people who have criticised the PHP licence or the way it is used. That includes, variously, ftpmaster (who have criticised the PHP licence situation via the Reject-FAQ and followed through on that criticism in their decisionmaking) and it also includes people posting here. `We' refers to the project collectively. Where the document speaks of `us' having a certain view, it is to be taken as referring to the views of the Debian project as promulgated or implemented by those who in Debian have responsibility for those decisions. 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/21494.13054.311365.960...@chiark.greenend.org.uk
Re: PHP licence SFLC questions draft v4
Hi, First, thanks a lot to Ian for working on this draft, which (I think) provides a nice summary of the situation around the PHP license. On 21/08/14 at 19:49 +0200, Cyril Brulebois wrote: Ian Jackson ijack...@chiark.greenend.org.uk (2014-08-21): Draft question for SFLC: (there are no changes since v3 apart from fixes to the numbering of some section cross-references) Some members of the Debian project have some concerns about the PHP licence. These worries are dismissed by other members and by relevant upstreams. We would like some advice. We are concerned here with the PHP 3.01 Licences, which can be found here: http://php.net/license/3_01.txt I might have missed them, but I don't think there were any replies to Charles' question in 20140801231037.ga8...@falafel.plessy.net. Who are “some members” and “we”? That's indeed a very good point, which I already raised with Ian earlier this month. Ftpmasters are the ones responsible for making decisions about acceptable software licenses in Debian. The advice provided by SFLC is extremely valuable to us, and should generally be followed, but it's still only advice. So I'll wait for Ftpmasters (Cced) to review and ACK the current draft before forwarding those questions to SFLC, to ensure that the questions accurately match and cover our concerns. Lucas signature.asc Description: Digital signature
