On Sat, Feb 23, 2008 at 11:50 PM, Tamer Higazi <th982a@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi!
Hi!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> I have asked myself a question.
And what answer did you get?
> 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.
The quick answer would be: no, nay, never.
> Who owns PHP? Is it Zend Technologies or the PHP Group itself? "Who" is
> the PHP Group and what makes the PHP Group?
The beauty of open source: we all own it. Through permission
granted by the PHP license, you can do almost anything you want with
the PHP source. Including what's called "forking": which, like a fork
in the road, means to take the project in a slightly different
direction.
> Who guaranties that future Versions of PHP stays open source and are
> being released under the Terms of the General Public Licenses?
PHP was never GPL'd code. Check the license.... there are some
pretty big differences. To answer your question, though, we all, as a
community, ensure that PHP remains open source, in one form or
another.
> 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.
Once again, it's not GPL, but I know what you're inferring.
There's nothing to stop Zend or anyone else in the world from offering
a "closed source" PHP, but you can bet your boxers (preferably clean
and unworn) that it won't receive the same accolades or acceptance by
the masses as the free and open source option. It may be
better-accepted by high-spending commercial interests, but it won't
exist on such a high majority of servers worldwide as it does now.
> 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 all intents and purposes, I implore you: fear not; for PHP is,
was, and ever shall be!
The project isn't going anywhere any time in the foreseeable
future, Tamer. PHP as an open source language is indefinite.
And on another note, if you're worried about a version you already
have installed becoming commercialized, don't. It's virtually
impossible.
--
</Dan>
Daniel P. Brown
Senior Unix Geek
<? while(1) { $me = $mind--; sleep(86400); } ?>
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