On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 at 05:26, Ben Ramsey <ram...@php.net> wrote: > Hello internals, > > I’m opening discussion on an RFC proposing that we relicense PHP under > the Modified BSD License (SPDX identifier: BSD-3-Clause), starting with > PHP 9.0. This change simplifies and modernizes our licensing, > addressing long-standing issues while preserving the rights of both > contributors and users. Below is a quick summary of what the RFC > proposes and what it means for developers. > > - Proposes that PHP 9.0 adopt the Modified BSD License (BSD-3-Clause), > replacing the current PHP and Zend Engine licenses. > - The Modified BSD License is OSI-approved, GPL-compatible, and widely > recognized in the open source community. > - Your rights as a developer—use, modification, distribution—remain > unchanged. > - Extensions and tools may adopt BSD-3-Clause in place of the outdated > PHP License. > - The update removes confusing legacy clauses tied to branding and > permissions. > > I’ve spoken with all members of the PHP Group, and each has voiced their > approval of this proposal. The Perforce legal team has also informally > approved, and I will be working with them to get a formal letter of > approval soon. > > The RFC is available at: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/php_license_update > > Discussion will remain open for at least six months to ensure all > interested parties have an opportunity to respond. > > Cheers, > Ben > > P.S. For legal questions or concerns, I’m working with Pamela Chestek > of Chestek Legal <https://www.chesteklegal.com> on behalf of the PHP > Group. You may be familiar with her work as chair of the license > committee for the Open Source Initiative. >
Sounds great. I'm sure this was a lot of work involved. Thank you. I'd just have two questions here that are popping up to things I've encountered lately: 1. TSRM (Thread Safe Resource Manager) also has a separate LICENSE file but it is BSD 2 Clause, which is compatible with all of that, I assume. That should be also simplified in some way? Perhaps integrating TSRM into Zend Engine directly at some point or updating its license to 3 clause BSD? 2. To be more clear, the GPL compatibility would probably need to be just slightly clarified to make PHP usage simpler in the future for cases when GPL-licensed software is involved. PHP currently has option to link to two GPL-3 licensed libraries that cause issues when distributing PHP (for example, packaging PHP and providing it as a binary via some package and similar): - GNU readline library for ext/readline (here libedit alternative can be used) https://github.com/php/php-src/issues/16826 - GDBM for ext/dba (here other handlers can be used) https://github.com/php/php-src/issues/15882 So, GPL-compatibility here means that PHP licensed under the Modified BSD License could link to GNU Readline library but it should be relicensed as GPL-3 then? Because I'm thinking of deprecating linking options with GNU Readline and GDBM to make the PHP build process worry-free for packagers.
