[php-maint] Bug#332615: Net_SMTP and the PHP License

Charles Fry debian at frogcircus.org
Wed Nov 9 01:50:43 UTC 2005


Hi,

As you may already be aware, a Debian package of your PEAR Net_SMTP
module has been created for distribution as a part of Debian (and
thereafter all of its derivatives). Unfortunately, it was discovered
that the PHP License under which Net_SMTP is released is problematic for
software other than PHP itself. This problem has already been brought
before the PEAR community, and is being actively worked on. If you are
interested, you can read about the problems with the license (when
applied to software other than PHP) and some of the ensuing discussion
at:

   http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/08/msg00188.html

or in one of the PEAR mailing lists which were also involved in the
discussion.

To give you a sense of how uncompatible the PHP License is for the
release of software other than PHP, please consider point (6) of version
3.0:

    "Redistributions of any form whatsoever must retain the following
    acknowledgment: 'This product includes PHP, freely available from
    <http://www.php.net/>'."

While this is perfectly reasonable when distributing PHP itself, it
would be silly to think that you really expect us to only distribute
Net_SMTP bundled with the entire PHP distribution. :-)

The PEAR team is currently working on how they would like to address
this issue:

   http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/08/msg00238.html

But in the meantime, Debian is forced to remove PHP Licensed packages
(except of course for PHP itself) in order avoid violating the license.

We would, however, love to keep Net_SMTP in Debian if you are able to
change the licence to something more compatible with your package. The
BSD License is quite similar to the PHP License. In fact, the first two
clauses of the PHP License were drawn from the BSD License. You can find
an example BSD License at:

   http://www.debian.org/misc/bsd.license

Note that the third point is optional, and is often left out.

We hope that you'll be able to migrate Net_SMTP to a license that is not
specific to PHP itself, in order to allow us to distribute it in Debian.

Thanks for your understanding, and please feel free to contact us with
any further questions that you have regarding this matter.

Charles

-- 
You can't reach 80
Hale and hearty
By driving 80
Home from
The party
Burma-Shave
http://burma-shave.org/jingles/1940/you_cant_reach
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