Hi! > I would like to react on Stat's "it's-not-our-problem" comment in > https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=63520
I assume by "Stat" you mean myself, though I'm not the only one who expressed the same sentiment of questioning why this is submitted as a "bug" in PHP. Assuming that, below are my thoughts on the subject (I apologize in advance for the length). > > I am very sad to see a core developer take such a passive-aggressive stance > against distributions' problems. My wild guess would be that most of the > users use the PHP in the pre-packaged form. Thus we really need to work > together and not fight against each other even though the set of the > problems (and their solutions) each party solves is different. I assure you that by raising this question I meant no aggression or animosity toward anybody, but I do have a question of priorities here. I understand that Debian has certain ideological guidelines which preclude them from distributing certain software that does not fit their views on how software should be licensed. Even though as far as I know Debian has "non-free" area in which they distribute software with licenses other than approved by Debian's guidelines, but ultimately I recognize that the decision of what to distribute and what not is Debian's and their alone. However, what happens in PHP project is decided by PHP developers community and should gain consensus and acceptance in the community. However, given all that, I think the matter would be handled better if, before taking decisions that can influence many users of PHP that chose to trust Debian to deliver their PHP builds, Debian would consult with PHP community on how to handle that. I do not remember this question being raised on PHP list and discussed there. I personally found about this decision by reading panic posts in the blogs along the line of "PHP removes JSON support", which I do not think is the best outcome we could hope for. I think PHP bug database is neither appropriate nor suitable forum for discussing such things - it is meant for tracking bugs in PHP code, e.g. mistakes made while implementing certain functionalities, and the license of JSON code, which obviously being controversial and causing issues for Debian, is definitely not there by any mistake and should not be treated as "bug". It should be treated as licensing issue and as such raised on this list and discussed and handled appropriately. I certainly and wholeheartedly agree that we do need to work together with distributions and that it would benefit our users. As a good start, I would ask Debian representatives to work with PHP community within processes accepted by the community, i.e. explain on this list why it is impossible to distribute PHP the way it was distributed before for years, why it is impossible to fit this code withing any "non-free" framework Debian has, what Debian suggests to do (taking into account this will influence wider PHP users community, many of whom, however regrettable may it be, do not use Debian) and so on, initiating the discussion that hopefully would come to some conclusion that would be satisfactory to everyone involved. Thanks, -- Stanislav Malyshev, Software Architect SugarCRM: http://www.sugarcrm.com/ (408)454-6900 ext. 227 -- PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
