Re: PHP non-free or wrongly named?

[Gervase Markham]

David Moreno Garza wrote:
I think Joey's mail is quite good since it is just stating facts. Truth
cannot be made up, specially on free software (and non-free also) legal
issues.
It took me a long time to learn this one, but it's true - it's not just 
what you say, it's the way that you say it. I have no quibble with the 
factual content of his mail.

Gerv
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Re: PHP non-free or wrongly named?

[David Moreno Garza]

On Mon, 2005-03-07 at 20:25 +, Gervase Markham wrote:
> The attitude which came across in your email seemed to be "We're the big 
> and important Debian project, and we've been violating your licence, 
> which is a bit of a shame, but please tell us we can keep doing so, 
> otherwise we'll yank your software from our distribution, and you 
> wouldn't want that, would you?" As the recipient of it, I certainly 
> wouldn't be inspired to work out a constructive solution.

I think Joey's mail is quite good since it is just stating facts. Truth
cannot be made up, specially on free software (and non-free also) legal
issues.

The fact is clear: What does PHP say about Debian using 'php' string on
packages/software distribution.

> Perhaps it would be advisable for letters which go out carrying the 
> authority of Debian ("We are a group of developers...") to be reviewed 
> by the list before being sent?

Yes, it is another viable choice.

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Re: PHP non-free or wrongly named?

[Lewis Jardine]

Michael Below wrote:
Here's the license except that left us wondering:
 4. Products derived from this software may not be called "PHP", nor
may "PHP" appear in their name, without prior written permission
from [EMAIL PROTECTED]  You may indicate that your software works in
conjunction with PHP by saying "Foo for PHP" instead of calling
it "PHP Foo" or "phpfoo"
When I read this last sentence I started wondering about packages like
phpbb, phpgroupware etc. As far as I know phpbb is an app for PHP, not
a derived work. But the trademark issue might remain.
>
Maybe one should ask the PHP group to clarify if their claim only
applies to derived works, or if they are trying to enforce trademark
rights on any use of "PHP". If it's the latter, Debian might have to
worry about it...
Surely by definition the claim only applies to derived works, seeing as 
it is in the license for distribution of PHP? Rather than being a 
trademark claim, is it not the case that this is an attempt to achieve 
trademark-like behaviour with copyright law?

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Re: PHP non-free or wrongly named?

[Michael Below]

Hi,

I'm new to this list, so maybe I should introduce myself. I'm a Debian
user since 1.3 (or something like that, my first CD set is 2.0). I
live in Berlin/Germany, and I have studied law. Currently I am a
"Rechtsreferendar", that's something like a mandatory trainee phase
before one is allowed to work in legal professions in Germany.

Martin Schulze <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> Here's the license except that left us wondering:
>
>   4. Products derived from this software may not be called "PHP", nor
>  may "PHP" appear in their name, without prior written permission
>  from [EMAIL PROTECTED]  You may indicate that your software works in
>  conjunction with PHP by saying "Foo for PHP" instead of calling
>  it "PHP Foo" or "phpfoo"

When I read this last sentence I started wondering about packages like
phpbb, phpgroupware etc. As far as I know phpbb is an app for PHP, not
a derived work. But the trademark issue might remain.

I don't really know US laws for this, but in Germany one might argue
that PHP is a notorious trademark according to § 4 Nr.2 MarkenG. And
this could mean an exclusive right for the PHP group to use the PHP
mark and those that can be confused with their mark. This includes
marks that wrongly suggests a relation between a product and the
protected mark (§14 II Nr. 2 MarkenG).

So if the PHP group was enforcing their trademark, this could be a
potential problem, at least in Germany. (I have heard that in the USA,
there is a "common law trademark", this might lead to a comparable
issue.)

On the other hand, I did a quick search for registered trademarks
containing PHP, and there is quite a number of them, names like "PHP
Magazine", "Visual PHP", "PHPED". See http://oami.eu.int/CTMOnline/
for EU-wide trademarks. If a trademark owner doesn't act against such
uses of his mark, the trademark (PHP) is "watered down", so it isn't
that strongly protected anymore, because the relevant customers are
used to seeing products with a related name that are not issued by PHP
group.

So if the PHP group took the phpbb team to court in Germany, I could't
tell without further research who would win.

Maybe one should ask the PHP group to clarify if their claim only
applies to derived works, or if they are trying to enforce trademark
rights on any use of "PHP". If it's the latter, Debian might have to
worry about it...

Michael Below

Re: PHP non-free or wrongly named?

[Gervase Markham]

Martin Schulze wrote:
I've sent this letter to the PHP group:

Dear authors,
we are a group of developers that build up an entire GNU/Linux system
based on the Linux kernel, GNU utilities and a lot of other software.
It is named Debian GNU/Linux , you may already
have heard about it.
Martin,
I may not be the most tactful person in the world, not a debian-legal 
regular or Debian developer, but I feel I should say that if I received 
an email like the one you sent the PHP developers, my first reaction 
would be rather negative towards the author and his organisation.

The attitude which came across in your email seemed to be "We're the big 
and important Debian project, and we've been violating your licence, 
which is a bit of a shame, but please tell us we can keep doing so, 
otherwise we'll yank your software from our distribution, and you 
wouldn't want that, would you?" As the recipient of it, I certainly 
wouldn't be inspired to work out a constructive solution.

Perhaps it would be advisable for letters which go out carrying the 
authority of Debian ("We are a group of developers...") to be reviewed 
by the list before being sent?

Gerv
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Re: PHP non-free or wrongly named?

[Martin Schulze]

Martin Schulze wrote:
> I've been informed about details of the PHP license:
> 
> For php3:
> 
>   5. The name "PHP" must not be used to endorse or promote products
>  derived from this software without prior written permission
>  from the PHP Development Team.  This does not apply to add-on
>  libraries or tools that work in conjunction with PHP.  In such
>  a case the PHP name may be used to indicate that the product
>  supports PHP.
> 
> For php4:
> 
>   4. Products derived from this software may not be called "PHP", nor
>  may "PHP" appear in their name, without prior written permission
>  from [EMAIL PROTECTED]  You may indicate that your software works in
>  conjunction with PHP by saying "Foo for PHP" instead of calling
>  it "PHP Foo" or "phpfoo"
> 
> Since Debian is (or at least may be) distributing patches in their
> packages that are not part of upstream, we are distributing a derived
> product and hence must not name it PHP.
> 
> This does not only affect Debian but also other distributions of PHP
> that are trying to enhance or fix PHP in some ways.

I've sent this letter to the PHP group:


Dear authors,

we are a group of developers that build up an entire GNU/Linux system
based on the Linux kernel, GNU utilities and a lot of other software.
It is named Debian GNU/Linux , you may already
have heard about it.

Recently we stomped over a paragraph in the license of PHP4 and wonder
if we are allowed to distribute PHP4 packages at all, now and in the
future.

Here's the license except that left us wondering:

  4. Products derived from this software may not be called "PHP", nor
 may "PHP" appear in their name, without prior written permission
 from [EMAIL PROTECTED]  You may indicate that your software works in
 conjunction with PHP by saying "Foo for PHP" instead of calling
 it "PHP Foo" or "phpfoo"

We can indeed think of a problematic situation when we develop
patches, broken or not, that are applied to the PHP4 source package
when building the package.  These could be improvements, corrections,
extensions or just security fixes.

If we need to contact you as upstream for each and every change, we'd
have to decide whether PHP4 is distributable at all and needs to be
moved to non-free or not.

So basically, this boils down to

Are arbitrary organisations or developers allowed to modify the PHP4
source and redistribute it and still calling it PHP4?

  [ ] yes, they are
  [ ] no, they are not, but calling the result something else is fine
  [ ] no, they are not at all

>From reading the above license except we fear that the second answer
will be yours, but we better ask yourself.

According to our own guidelines[1] a permission of the above for only
the Debian project would not be sufficient, since it would render the
license Debian-specific which it must not:

 1. http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines

Even though this is a private mail, I would like to publish your
answer, so please take into account when writing a response that it
will most probably show up on the debian-legal[2] mailing list where
this issue is discussed.  If you don't like this, please send be a
short answer stating that you don't wish to be quoted in public.

 2. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/


Andi Gutmans <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> answered and told me that he speaks
for the PHP Group:

| As per your problem, having such a clause in the BSD-like license
| is the way both Apache and PHP have been enforcing and protecting
| their brand for a long time.  Minor build changes and backported
| security fixes are fine and if that's all you're doing there is no
| need to rename the package.  The problems arise when you start
| making significant changes to the actual functionality of the

| The license clause and intent is identical in the Apache license
| which we believe you are also shipping.

So as soon as our maintainer or security team adds more than onlyh
"build changes and backported security fixes", we'll have to rename
the PHP (and Apache) packages.

Regards,

Joey

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Re: PHP non-free or wrongly named?

[Francesco Poli]

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 17:12:48 +0100 Martin Schulze wrote:

> I've been informed about details of the PHP license:
> 
> For php3:
> 
>   5. The name "PHP" must not be used to endorse or promote products
>  derived from this software without prior written permission
>  from the PHP Development Team.  This does not apply to add-on
>  libraries or tools that work in conjunction with PHP.  In such
>  a case the PHP name may be used to indicate that the product
>  supports PHP.

I recently checked php3 copyright file and it states that PHP3 is dual
licensed: PHP license or GNU GPL at the recipient's option:
http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/p/php3/php3_3.0.18-28/php3.copyright

The DFSG compliance of the PHP license should not be a concern if we
have the GPL as an option to be chosen, right? 


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Re: Re: PHP non-free or wrongly named?

[Glenn Maynard]

On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 07:18:37AM +0100, Alban browaeys wrote:
> I would say that debian does not treat trademark as a licence. Else we
> could not release with the debian "release" logo , nor the debian
> trademarked name.
> That would be pretty cool :)

That's broken reasoning; it's like saying "we should not treat software
that prohibits commercial use as non-free, since otherwise Debian could
not prohibit commercial use".  Just because Debian wants to do something
doesn't make it free; if it's non-free, Debian should stop doing it, too.

(The reasoning that goes "Trademarks don't make a work non-free, because
you can always remove the trademark and functional elements aren't
protected by trademark" is much better, though there are a lot of questions,
such as "if it takes substantial effort to remove restricted trademarks
from a work, should Debian do so, to ensure that the freedoms required by
the DFSG can actually be exercised?", and others.)

> I am out of laugh thinking of we tellling the release manager "ehrm
> sorry we have an RC on debian, it is not free. Could you contact the SPI
> to ask if they agree to "free" the debian name !" :->

"Debian does it, therefore it's free" isn't a line of reasoning that
one can use and still take Freeness seriously.

-- 
Glenn Maynard

Re: Re: PHP non-free or wrongly named?

[Alban browaeys]

I would say that debian does not treat trademark as a licence. Else we
could not release with the debian "release" logo , nor the debian
trademarked name.
That would be pretty cool :)

I am out of laugh thinking of we tellling the release manager "ehrm
sorry we have an RC on debian, it is not free. Could you contact the SPI
to ask if they agree to "free" the debian name !" :->
No offense, i always found legal issues pretty funny. You may not be
wrong as the php trademark is defined in the licence itself, there is
obviously a legislation mix.
Is there a copyright on the trademark requiring us to ask for an
exception to the licence to enable us to ask for the right to use their
trademark ... damn


Regards
Alban



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Re: PHP non-free or wrongly named?

[Joel Aelwyn]

On Tue, Feb 22, 2005 at 03:31:22AM +, MJ Ray wrote:
> Joel Aelwyn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [...]
> > "You may not have any cookies right now".
> > 
> > It's a reflexive negation rewording of "May I " -> "You may not ".
> [snip]
> 
> Well, that's fine, but if I don't need your permission in order
> to have cookies, it's sort of irrelevant. Also, it doesn't
> actually require any action from me to achieve that state
> of not having your permission to have cookies and make your
> statement true.
> 
> This is a head-strainer and I'm not surprised that anyone is
> unfamiliar with it. It's related to old jokes that my school
> teachers used to use: "Can I leave the room?" "Not without my
> permission." A bit twisted, maybe, but it teaches.

Yes; my impression is that it is likely that this is badly written in the
same way that it is quite common for people to ask "Can I?" instead of "May
I?". Thank goodness nobody tried to use "shall" / "will" or "who" / "whom".

> As I wrote earlier, legal interpretation of this sort of
> phrase needs someone other than me and if anyone is worried,
> please go ask PHP Group about it (if PHP Group is bothering
> to accept email yet) and maybe get blanket "PHP for ..."
> approval.

Indeed, it seems like the standard fallback of "ask for a clarification" is
in order. Gotta love TMDA systems, really.
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Re: PHP non-free or wrongly named?

[MJ Ray]

Joel Aelwyn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [...]
> "You may not have any cookies right now".
> 
> It's a reflexive negation rewording of "May I " -> "You may not ".
[snip]

Well, that's fine, but if I don't need your permission in order
to have cookies, it's sort of irrelevant. Also, it doesn't
actually require any action from me to achieve that state
of not having your permission to have cookies and make your
statement true.

This is a head-strainer and I'm not surprised that anyone is
unfamiliar with it. It's related to old jokes that my school
teachers used to use: "Can I leave the room?" "Not without my
permission." A bit twisted, maybe, but it teaches.

As I wrote earlier, legal interpretation of this sort of
phrase needs someone other than me and if anyone is worried,
please go ask PHP Group about it (if PHP Group is bothering
to accept email yet) and maybe get blanket "PHP for ..."
approval.

-- 
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http://people.debian.org/~mjr/


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Re: PHP non-free or wrongly named?

[Joel Aelwyn]

On Mon, Feb 21, 2005 at 10:42:29AM +, MJ Ray wrote:
> Lewis Jardine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [...]
> 
> I think the obvious intended meaning is another assertion of
> representation norms.  The other conditions of this licence use
> "must" not "may".  To what wording convention do you refer? Are
> you claiming that if I wrote "Fred runs; Jane runs; Tom walks;
> Belinda runs" then I really mean "Tom runs" because it follows
> a similar language pattern as the other clauses?
> 
> If you are troubled by what the licensor means and the limits
> of the rights they assert, ask them.

"You may not have any cookies right now".

It's a reflexive negation rewording of "May I " -> "You may not ".
This is not the same usage as "You may, or may not, encounter ". Perhaps
this is a quirk of American English; I can't really be bothered enough to
go dig up the full history. But it is sufficiently clear that at least
some large set of people who are told "You may not" interpret it as an
imperative statement, rather than an informational one, that it should be
assumed to be a prohibition.

I haven't even tried to follow the rest of the thread, it makes my head
hurt right now, so what (if any) consequences this triggers in the
interpretation, I couldn't tell you.
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Re: PHP non-free or wrongly named?

[Martin Schulze]

MJ Ray wrote:
> As a first attempt to fix, if it's thought to be a problem, can
> you ask [EMAIL PROTECTED] to give blanket permission for php packaging
> to be called "PHP" or "PHP for distribution-or-package-system"?

Tried that, received:

 996 N ! Feb 21 PHP Automoderator  117 PHP posting confirmation for [EMAIL 
PROTECTED]

Apparently they are not interested in mail from me.  Fine.  If
somebody else is interested in getting their opinions, they may
retry.  I'm not going to respond to any tmda like system.  The mail
I sent was copied to debian-email, so you can find the content on
master in the archive if you're not subscribed to debian-legal.

Regards,

Joey

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Re: PHP non-free or wrongly named?

[Martin Schulze]

MJ Ray wrote:
> Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
> modification, is permitted provided that the following conditions
> are met:
>  [...] 
>   4. Products derived from this software may not be called "PHP", nor
>  may "PHP" appear in their name, without prior written permission
>  from [EMAIL PROTECTED]  You may indicate that your software works in
>  conjunction with PHP by saying "Foo for PHP" instead of calling
>  it "PHP Foo" or "phpfoo"
>  
> Now, I hope nearly everyone defines the relevant sense of "may"
> as "have permission" or similar. So, it's permitted provided
> that {we don't have permission for some acts without permission
> from [EMAIL PROTECTED] The {}d bit is probably always true unless someone
> else gives us permission (huh?).
> 
> If it's not intended as a statement (and I hope it is) then I think
> it's a case of Lawyer error: reboot Lawyer.
> 
> I hope the blanket permission email wouldn't be a problem.
> There's enough stuff with names like phpfoo which aren't all
> derived and aren't being chased, as far as I can tell.

Wouldn't that violate DFSG#8?  (License Must Not Be Specific to Debian)

Regards,

Joey

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Re: PHP non-free or wrongly named?

[MJ Ray]

Lewis Jardine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [...]

> Having just reread your post again, I think I realise what you are 
> saying. Because they wrote the 'condition' as "Products derived from 
> this software may not be called "PHP", nor may "PHP" appear in their 
> name, without prior written permission from [EMAIL PROTECTED]" instead of 
> "Either a)The name of the product does not contain 'PHP' OR b) the name 
> of the product contains 'PHP' AND the licensee has prior written 
> permission from [EMAIL PROTECTED]", the condition is always self-evidently 
> true.

Now I'm not sure what you're saying here. I think they're
just pointing out that you do not have permission and they
are the ones to give permission.

> If this is the case, do you not think that your interpretation goes 
> against both the obvious intended meaning of the condition, and the fact 
> that the same wording convention is used in the other conditions of this 
> license? Courts usually favour what the licensor meant-it-to-mean (when 
> this is obvious to a reasonable person) rather than what they actually 
> ended up saying.

I think the obvious intended meaning is another assertion of
representation norms.  The other conditions of this licence use
"must" not "may".  To what wording convention do you refer? Are
you claiming that if I wrote "Fred runs; Jane runs; Tom walks;
Belinda runs" then I really mean "Tom runs" because it follows
a similar language pattern as the other clauses?

If you are troubled by what the licensor means and the limits
of the rights they assert, ask them.

> Under this interpretation, all clauses of the BSD license could be 
> treated as statements of self-evident facts, thus making them all true, 
> and the entire license a blanket permission grant. This is not a common 
> or correct interpretation, however.

No, there's two directions ("must") and one statement ("may").

> If this is not the case, I apologise for wasting your time.

Thank you. It's not a total waste, as it throws the difference
into sharp relief, I think.

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Re: PHP non-free or wrongly named?

[Henning Makholm]

Scripsit MJ Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Henning Makholm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>> [...] However, conventionally, "may not do foo" is supposed
>> to be parsed as (a) whereas "must not do foo" is usually parsed
>> analogously to (b) - which makes them actually mean the same in
>> natural English.

> Which convention specified that change in meaning for "may"?

"May" itself does not change its meaning.

>> But it is not our modus operandi to consider something to be *free*
>> based on such a reading that clearly diverges from what the author
>> actually did mean.

> Would you please forward the explanation you appear to have
> received from the PHP licence author?

I have not received any specific explanation. But I believe I have a
basic understanding of the English language.

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Re: PHP non-free or wrongly named?

[Lewis Jardine]

MJ Ray wrote:
Linguistically, this seems clear to me. Showing in context:
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, is permitted provided that the following conditions
are met:
 [...] 
  4. Products derived from this software may not be called "PHP", nor
 may "PHP" appear in their name, without prior written permission
 from [EMAIL PROTECTED]  You may indicate that your software works in
 conjunction with PHP by saying "Foo for PHP" instead of calling
 it "PHP Foo" or "phpfoo"
 
Now, I hope nearly everyone defines the relevant sense of "may"
as "have permission" or similar. So, it's permitted provided
that {we don't have permission for some acts without permission
from [EMAIL PROTECTED] The {}d bit is probably always true unless someone
else gives us permission (huh?).

If it's not intended as a statement (and I hope it is) then I think
it's a case of Lawyer error: reboot Lawyer.
Having just reread your post again, I think I realise what you are 
saying. Because they wrote the 'condition' as "Products derived from 
this software may not be called "PHP", nor may "PHP" appear in their 
name, without prior written permission from [EMAIL PROTECTED]" instead of 
"Either a)The name of the product does not contain 'PHP' OR b) the name 
of the product contains 'PHP' AND the licensee has prior written 
permission from [EMAIL PROTECTED]", the condition is always self-evidently true.

If this is the case, do you not think that your interpretation goes 
against both the obvious intended meaning of the condition, and the fact 
that the same wording convention is used in the other conditions of this 
license? Courts usually favour what the licensor meant-it-to-mean (when 
this is obvious to a reasonable person) rather than what they actually 
ended up saying.

Under this interpretation, all clauses of the BSD license could be 
treated as statements of self-evident facts, thus making them all true, 
and the entire license a blanket permission grant. This is not a common 
or correct interpretation, however.

If this is not the case, I apologise for wasting your time.
On the subject of statement vs condition, if the first sentence of four 
were a statement, surely it should be a statement of trademark law as it 
actually is*? That (when interpreted in this way) it is incorrect on at 
least two counts** suggests that it should be interpreted as a 
condition, not a statement, much like the GPL's "You may not copy, 
modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly 
provided under this License.", which is incorrect if interpreted as a 
statement of fact rather than a condition: in most jurisdictions, you 
have 'fair use' rights in addition to the GPL.

* and thus be something like 'products (whether derived from this 
software or not) may not misrepresent themselves as being the product 
'PHP' when this is not the case'.

** trademark lay is not limited to only derived works, and trademark law 
cannot prevent the truthful use of a trademark (for instance, 'Debian's 
modified version of PHP' would not infringe trademark law, despite 'PHP' 
being in the name).

--
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IANAL, IANADD
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Re: PHP non-free or wrongly named?

[MJ Ray]

Nick Phillips <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Nice unmarked trim. Try another tactic.

> [...] Is English your first language?

Yes, born within 60 miles of Oxford, my English is as English as it
gets, except when I talk dialect. Try another tactic.

> I find it hard to believe that any native speaker with a reasonable
> degree of literacy can misinterpret that paragraph in the way that
> you have, whilst still believing that it "seems clear".

Educated to postgrad level. Try another tactic.

> For the avoidance of doubt, that paragraph "clearly" means that:
> * you may not call your derived product "PHP"
> * "PHP" may not appear in your derived product's name
> if you wish to take advantage of the permissions to be granted, unless
> you have prior written permission to do so. [...]

See, it is clear. The first bullet is a simple assertion of norms. The
second is contradicted by the remainder of the paragraph anyway.

Try another tactic if you want to boot PHP out. If you were really
concerned for its well-being, you could work with the maint to
check it out and resolve it to *your* satisfaction.

-- 
MJR/slef
http://people.debian.org/~mjr/


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Re: PHP non-free or wrongly named?

[MJ Ray]

Henning Makholm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> [...] However, conventionally, "may not do foo" is supposed
> to be parsed as (a) whereas "must not do foo" is usually parsed
> analogously to (b) - which makes them actually mean the same in
> natural English.

Which convention specified that change in meaning for "may"?

[...]
> But it is not our modus operandi to consider something to be *free*
> based on such a reading that clearly diverges from what the author
> actually did mean.

Would you please forward the explanation you appear to have
received from the PHP licence author?

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http://people.debian.org/~mjr/


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Re: PHP non-free or wrongly named?

[Nick Phillips]

On Sat, Feb 19, 2005 at 02:59:04AM +, MJ Ray wrote:

> Linguistically, this seems clear to me.

> Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
> modification, is permitted provided that the following conditions
> are met:
>  [...] 
>   4. Products derived from this software may not be called "PHP", nor
>  may "PHP" appear in their name, without prior written permission
>  from [EMAIL PROTECTED]  You may indicate that your software works in
>  conjunction with PHP by saying "Foo for PHP" instead of calling
>  it "PHP Foo" or "phpfoo"
>  
> Now, I hope nearly everyone defines the relevant sense of "may"
> as "have permission" or similar. So, it's permitted provided
> that {we don't have permission for some acts without permission
> from [EMAIL PROTECTED] The {}d bit is probably always true unless someone
> else gives us permission (huh?).

> If it's not intended as a statement (and I hope it is) then I think
> it's a case of Lawyer error: reboot Lawyer.


Is English your first language?

I find it hard to believe that any native speaker with a reasonable
degree of literacy can misinterpret that paragraph in the way that
you have, whilst still believing that it "seems clear".


For the avoidance of doubt, that paragraph "clearly" means that:
* you may not call your derived product "PHP"
* "PHP" may not appear in your derived product's name
if you wish to take advantage of the permissions to be granted, unless
you have prior written permission to do so.

They go on to suggest ways in which you could convey the fact that
your product works in conjunction with PHP without pissing them off.



Cheers,


Nick


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Re: PHP non-free or wrongly named?

[Henning Makholm]

Scripsit MJ Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

> Linguistically, this seems clear to me.

No, there's always at least formally a possibility of confusion. Even
if we ignore the "without prior written permission" part, we can parse

>   4. Products derived from this software may not be called "PHP",

in two different ways.

  (a) Derived products (may not) be called PHP.

  (b) Derived products may (not be called PHP).

Here (a) asserts the falsehood of "we have permission to call it PHP",
whereas (b) asserts that we have permission to call it something else.

The tricky part is that if we exchange "may" with "must" one would
expect the meaning to change, becuase "may" means "you have the choice
of doing this or not doing this", and "must" means "your only option
is doing this". However, conventionally, "may not do foo" is supposed
to be parsed as (a) whereas "must not do foo" is usually parsed
analogously to (b) - which makes them actually mean the same in
natural English.

I leave it as an exercise for the studious reader to express this in
a modal logic where "may" is dual to "must" ;-)

> So, it's permitted provided that {we don't have permission for some
> acts without permission from [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Which is clearly a nonsensical interpretation, which means that you
should probably reboot your English parser, as it seems to have been
contaminated with some kind of rigid programming language semantics.


Word games such as these can be fun and occasionally useful for
demonstrating that a license could be interpreted in a non-free way.
But it is not our modus operandi to consider something to be *free*
based on such a reading that clearly diverges from what the author
actually did mean.

-- 
Henning Makholm  "Jeg har tydeligt gjort opmærksom på, at man ved at
   følge den vej kun bliver gennemsnitligt ca. 48 år gammel,
   og at man sætter sin sociale situation ganske overstyr og, så
   vidt jeg kan overskue, dør i dybeste ulykkelighed og elendighed."

Re: PHP non-free or wrongly named?

[MJ Ray]

Steve Langasek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 18, 2005 at 07:04:44PM +, MJ Ray wrote:
> > php4's licence says "may not be called" but isn't "may not ..." a
> > lot different to "must not ..."? I don't think anyone needs their
> > permission unless it's infringing on their trademark. Clause
> > 4 appears weak enough to allow debian's use.
> How is that any different legally?  When someone tells me that I "may not"
> do something, I'm being told that I don't have permission to do it, I'm not
> being told that there's a chance I won't do it.

I invite other people to give more legal information.

Linguistically, this seems clear to me. Showing in context:

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, is permitted provided that the following conditions
are met:
 [...] 
  4. Products derived from this software may not be called "PHP", nor
 may "PHP" appear in their name, without prior written permission
 from [EMAIL PROTECTED]  You may indicate that your software works in
 conjunction with PHP by saying "Foo for PHP" instead of calling
 it "PHP Foo" or "phpfoo"
 
Now, I hope nearly everyone defines the relevant sense of "may"
as "have permission" or similar. So, it's permitted provided
that {we don't have permission for some acts without permission
from [EMAIL PROTECTED] The {}d bit is probably always true unless someone
else gives us permission (huh?).

If it's not intended as a statement (and I hope it is) then I think
it's a case of Lawyer error: reboot Lawyer.

I hope the blanket permission email wouldn't be a problem.
There's enough stuff with names like phpfoo which aren't all
derived and aren't being chased, as far as I can tell.

-- 
MJR/slef
http://people.debian.org/~mjr/


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Re: PHP non-free or wrongly named?

[Glenn Maynard]

>  5. The name "PHP" must not be used to endorse or promote products
> derived from this software without prior written permission
> from the PHP Development Team.  This does not apply to add-on
> libraries or tools that work in conjunction with PHP.  In such
> a case the PHP name may be used to indicate that the product
> supports PHP.

On Fri, Feb 18, 2005 at 04:34:29PM -0800, Josh Triplett wrote:
> At least according to the FSF, the PHP3 license is GPL-compatible,
> though later PHP licenses are not.  I believe restricting it to "endorse
> or promote" takes it to the level of the 3-clause BSD license, which
> also prohibits endorsement or promotion; as has been previously
> discussed on debian-legal, stating endorsement or promotion is already
> prohibited without permission.

Huh?  BSD says that you can't use the author's name (or other people's
names) to promote stuff.  (That's fine.  It's saying "don't lie".)  It
doesn't say you can't even use the name of the program itself--you can't
say "SourceForge, powered by PHP!"--and I don't know how such a
restriction can possibly be GPL-compatible ...

(Promoting your product by truthfully saying that you use something isn't
comparable to falsely claiming that PHP or its creators endorse your
product ...)

(I don't know how far the "work in conjunction with PHP" allowance goes,
but I doubt it changes anything wrt. GPL-compatibility.)

-- 
Glenn Maynard


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Re: PHP non-free or wrongly named?

[Josh Triplett]

MJ Ray wrote:
> Martin Schulze <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>Since Debian is (or at least may be) distributing patches in their
>>packages that are not part of upstream, we are distributing a derived
>>product and hence must not name it PHP.
>
> php3's licence says "must not" but only for "endorse or promote"
> which I don't think we're doing, are we?

At least according to the FSF, the PHP3 license is GPL-compatible,
though later PHP licenses are not.  I believe restricting it to "endorse
or promote" takes it to the level of the 3-clause BSD license, which
also prohibits endorsement or promotion; as has been previously
discussed on debian-legal, stating endorsement or promotion is already
prohibited without permission.

- Josh Triplett


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Re: PHP non-free or wrongly named?

[Steve Langasek]

On Fri, Feb 18, 2005 at 07:04:44PM +, MJ Ray wrote:
> Martin Schulze <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> > Since Debian is (or at least may be) distributing patches in their
> > packages that are not part of upstream, we are distributing a derived
> > product and hence must not name it PHP.

> php3's licence says "must not" but only for "endorse or promote"
> which I don't think we're doing, are we?

> php4's licence says "may not be called" but isn't "may not ..." a
> lot different to "must not ..."? I don't think anyone needs their
> permission unless it's infringing on their trademark. Clause
> 4 appears weak enough to allow debian's use.

How is that any different legally?  When someone tells me that I "may not"
do something, I'm being told that I don't have permission to do it, I'm not
being told that there's a chance I won't do it.

> As a first attempt to fix, if it's thought to be a problem, can
> you ask [EMAIL PROTECTED] to give blanket permission for php packaging
> to be called "PHP" or "PHP for distribution-or-package-system"?

That sounds like it would be worthwhile.

-- 
Steve Langasek
postmodern programmer


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Re: PHP non-free or wrongly named?

[MJ Ray]

Martin Schulze <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Since Debian is (or at least may be) distributing patches in their
> packages that are not part of upstream, we are distributing a derived
> product and hence must not name it PHP.

php3's licence says "must not" but only for "endorse or promote"
which I don't think we're doing, are we?

php4's licence says "may not be called" but isn't "may not ..." a
lot different to "must not ..."? I don't think anyone needs their
permission unless it's infringing on their trademark. Clause
4 appears weak enough to allow debian's use.

As a first attempt to fix, if it's thought to be a problem, can
you ask [EMAIL PROTECTED] to give blanket permission for php packaging
to be called "PHP" or "PHP for distribution-or-package-system"?

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http://people.debian.org/~mjr/


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PHP non-free or wrongly named?

[Martin Schulze]

I've been informed about details of the PHP license:

For php3:

  5. The name "PHP" must not be used to endorse or promote products
 derived from this software without prior written permission
 from the PHP Development Team.  This does not apply to add-on
 libraries or tools that work in conjunction with PHP.  In such
 a case the PHP name may be used to indicate that the product
 supports PHP.

For php4:

  4. Products derived from this software may not be called "PHP", nor
 may "PHP" appear in their name, without prior written permission
 from [EMAIL PROTECTED]  You may indicate that your software works in
 conjunction with PHP by saying "Foo for PHP" instead of calling
 it "PHP Foo" or "phpfoo"

Since Debian is (or at least may be) distributing patches in their
packages that are not part of upstream, we are distributing a derived
product and hence must not name it PHP.

This does not only affect Debian but also other distributions of PHP
that are trying to enhance or fix PHP in some ways.

Regards,

Joey

-- 
Unix is user friendly ...  It's just picky about its friends.

Please always Cc to me when replying to me on the lists.


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