Richard Palmer originally added the php module. In the original
submission he had the code to generate the Copyright into the wrapper
file. You can view the original file that was committed into the SWIG
cvs repository in the rel-1-3 branch:
http://swig.cvs.sourceforge.net/swig/SWIG/Source/Modules1.1/php4.cxx?view=log&pathrev=rel-1-3
I've added Richard onto the list of recipients. Hopefully Richard's
email address still works and he can explain:
1) Why the licencing was added?
2) What portions are subjected to the php licence?
3) Was the licencing a requirement for code that he obtained elsewhere
or a licence he felt like using?
With regard to Sam's comment below about anything that uses php/zend
header files being derived from php. I think someone at php needs to
clarify this. Most projects that supply header files will apply an
exception to usage of the header files and linking in. The classic
example is the LGPL is applied in many cases where the project is GPL'd.
For example the C++ runtime is LGPL'd and so usage is all permissive. If
the phph licence does not allow all permissive usage of the header
files, then it taints in the way that the GPL does, then we genuinely do
have a problem. How about a new thread is raised and sent to
license@php.net checking that usage of the php headers is / is not all
permissive? If usage of the headers is all permissive, all we need to do
understand Richard's motives and hopefully get his approval for removing
the licence requirement he added as it could well have been a
misunderstanding of the php licencing.
Below is the licence text that was originally added:
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| PHP version 4.0 |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Copyright (c) 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 The PHP Group |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| This source file is subject to version 2.02 of the PHP license, |
| that is bundled with this package in the file LICENSE, and is |
| available at through the world-wide-web at |
| http://www.php.net/license/2_02.txt. |
| If you did not receive a copy of the PHP license and are unable to |
| obtain it through the world-wide-web, please send a note to |
| license@php.net so we can mail you a copy immediately. |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Authors: |
| |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
William
Sam Liddicott wrote:> You are probably right about the unnecessary strictness of the license of
the generated code; but changing that will only make distribution of the
xapian-php module source clearer.
>
> However, despite the original bug report, the compiled php-xapian makes use
of php/zend header files and structures and so is derived from it. It is this
mechanism that most people confuse with linking, because linking (generally)
requires knowledge of header files.
>
> I've justnoticed that my messages to the swig list bounced so I
probably need to subscribe and re-send.
>
> sam
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Olly Betts" <olly@survex.com>
> To: "Alexander Lind" <malte@webstay.org>
> Cc: "William S Fulton" <wsf@fultondesigns.co.uk>;
swig-devel@lists.sourceforge.net; "Xapian Discussion"
<xapian-discuss@lists.xapian.org>
> Sent: 23/08/07 04:30
> Subject: Re: [Xapian-discuss] Re: [Swig-devel] license issue
>
> On Tue, Aug 21, 2007 at 06:53:03PM -0700, Alexander Lind wrote:
>> Now does this mean that the PHP bindings generated with SWIG are
alright
>> after all (ie does not violate the PHP license), or does it mean that
>> they are not out of the woods yet, but that this can be fixed by just
>> generating them in a different way? Or neither?
>
> There seems to be rather a lot of confusion and people talking at
> cross-purposes here.
>
> Let's look at the original bug reported:
>
> http://www.xapian.org/cgi-bin/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=191
>
> The issue which has been raised is this:
>
> Quotes from the conversation on IRC with Fedora developers :
> "the problem i'm seeing is that xapian-bindings has bits of
code that
> are GPLv2+ and PHP"
> "and it is merging them together into one .cc file and compiling
_that_"
> "except, the GPLv2 and PHP are incompatible"
> "BOOM"
> "tell upstream that they can't compile PHP code with GPL*
code"
>
> I believe they are referring to the fact that SWIG's PHP backend
inserts
> licence boilerplate (for the PHP 2.02 licence) into the C/C++ code it
> generates.
>
> I'm rather unclear on why it does this. SWIG is supposed to be
licensed
> under a permissive BSD-style licence. This use of the PHP licence is
> not mentioned in the file "LICENCE", and the code generated
doesn't seem
> to be taken from PHP that I can see.
>
> I asked about this very issue in May 2006, but nobody responded then:
>
> http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.programming.swig.devel/16167
>
> If somebody can explain why this boilerplate is inserted, and what (if
> any) part of the generated code it actually applies to, then we should
> be able to replace any such code with unencumbered code and resolve this
> issue.
>
> Cheers,
> Olly
>
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>
>