> -----Original Message----- > From: Tamer Higazi [mailto:th982a@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] > Sent: Saturday, February 23, 2008 11:50 PM > To: php-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > Subject: Question about PHP Licence and it's future! > > Hi! > I have asked myself a question. After I saw, that SAP will no more > release future Versions of their open source Database MaxDB under the > GPL License, I have asked myself either if this could happen with PHP. > > Who owns PHP? Is it Zend Technologies or the PHP Group itself? "Who" is > the PHP Group and what makes the PHP Group? > > Who guaranties that future Versions of PHP stays open source and are > being released under the Terms of the General Public Licenses? > > Can future Versions from one day to the other no more being released > under the GPL, only under a closed source license? Let us say, PHP would > be distributed for several architectures only in binary forms and the > PECL modules stay open source. > > These questions are for me very importand according to an commercial > product which will be planed, designed, written and sold commercially. > > We are pendling between Ruby, Python and PHP5. Only the point "written" > is unclear. > > > for any answer > > > Thank you very much > > > > Tamer Higazi First off, PHP is not GPL-ed. Check this http://www.php.net/license/ Now, if all you plan to do is to *write PHP code you can sell*, I'd say you rest assured. Nothing like MaxDB issue will ever happen to PHP (though things like this could happen for PECL extensions who depend on third-party libraries I think). So, unless you are planning to distribute the Zend Scripting Engine ALONE as part of a commercial product (say you want to use PHP to script against a desktop application, like VBA works for MS Word), you are also safe about Zend. Keep in mind also, that the worst problem with closed source software is lack of support if the company goes out of business. I believe that will never happen to PHP. It can happen to some extensions, but only those that rely on third-party functionality (say, the mysql extension), so the problem is not PHP itself (and you'll have the same problem for every other language). As this is not an authoritative answer, you'd better off sending an email to group@xxxxxxx explaining what you are planning to do and your concerns on the future of PHP. Regards, Rob Andrés Robinet | Lead Developer | BESTPLACE CORPORATION 5100 Bayview Drive 206, Royal Lauderdale Landings, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33308 | TEL 954-607-4207 | FAX 954-337-2695 | Email: info@xxxxxxxxxxxxx | MSN Chat: best@xxxxxxxxxxxxx | SKYPE: bestplace | Web: bestplace.biz | Web: seo-diy.com -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
