At 23:20 28/06/99 , Rasmus Lerdorf wrote:
Maybe this could be a change considered along with the release of PHP4,
since there's already plans to split off the GPL code into another
package?
I am all for putting PHP under the exact Apache license without any
changed. And I always have been. It isn't me you need to convince.
That would be us (Andi and me), and we still hold the position that people should not be given the legal right to do whatever they wish with PHP. I doubt this clause stopped anybody from using PHP for legitimate purposes - it was one Email away.
The problematic aspect here, IMO, is what exactly the legal status of the 'core team' is, and whether the core team as it was historically formed is the best group to decide over this issue, and if it is, in what way; However, as a rule, I don't see any reason to remove it. Alter and improve it so that it's clearer - sure, but definitely not remove it. Also, I fail to see the motivation in 'reducing the number of licenses out there'. A license should fit the purpose of its authors, and since none of the existing licenses fit our purposes, we created this modified one.
Also, and that's mostly directed as Rasmus (as a brainstorm invitation, not a bashing of any sort) - I don't see how we could easily, legally drop the GNU public license as you've announced you'd want to do (since your IBM contract prevents you from working on GPLd software).
Before we can modify the PHP license (e.g., modify any clause in our license or drop the GPL), we must get the approval of every single person who've contributed code to the source tree, don't we? After all, these people contributed code knowing the license is X, and now we want to change it to X' (slight modifications to the PHP license) or even Y (if we drop the GPL). Personally, I'm completely in favour of dropping the GPL - but I'm not sure whether we can do it.
We'd also have to add at least one clause about Zend pointing people at the Zend license in case they consider modifying code that's a part of Zend or take out Zend and reuse it in other applications, but I'm not too worried about that.
Zeev
--
Zeev Suraski <[email protected]> http://www.zend.com/
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