[echelon]

I find these sorts of legal changes fascinating.

The fact that the OSI didn't approve of the PHP License until pressured shows the wayward nature of their "stewardship" of "open source". As does their wonky and rights-eroding definition of "open source AI".

> The proposed license does not reduce any user rights or add any new restrictions on the use of code previously licensed under the PHP License, version 3.01,

Yes, it does. Modified BSD Clause 3 (copied below).

> 3. Neither the name of the copyright holder nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

I know I'm being pedantic, but this is a narrowing of rights.

> Do We Require Permission From All Contributors? The short answer is, “No.”

I think that they can get away with this change since the original license doesn't preclude a narrowing of rights on derivatives.

It would be interesting if a contributor protested the additional burden and headache of having to deal with a torrent of snail mail asking for endorsement.

[remram]

> I know I'm being pedantic, but this is a narrowing of rights.

No, it's not. Explicitly stating which rights you don't grant is not more narrow than implicitly not granting them, it's just clearer. Copyrights and trademark rights are different.

[Supermancho]

> is not more narrow than implicitly not granting them

Implicitly not granted? You mean, not mentioned at all? Imagine a world in which the modified BSD license exists in a vacuum. This license restricts how a product can be endorsed/promoted as per the clause. Granted, additional restrictions are removed in regard to "PHP" et al.

The shape is different, not just clearer.

[remram]

I don't know what you are talking about. Many licenses don't mention trademark issues at all, that doesn't mean they grant you the right to use the trademark.

"Not mentioned at all" does not mean you can do it. Licenses do not restrict, they permit, from a default of "you may not use my stuff".

The license text could also say "you may not break into my house". That would not make it a "narrowing of rights", and that doesn't mean other licenses implicitly grant you the right to break into the software author's house if you use their software.

[hnarn]

I think the point the previous poster is trying to make is that:

> This license restricts how a product can be endorsed/promoted as per the clause.

...is technically not true for licenses, because they do not _restrict_ usage, rather they _permit_ usage. The usage is, by default, always restricted by automatic copyright and authorship laws, so any license (including the GPL) is not a restriction but a permission, since it has _granted_ permissions that were implicitly not there.

So if you change your license in a way where it appears more restrictions have been added, but those restrictions were already implicit because they were not even covered or taken into account in your original license, no new restrictions were added, your "grant" was just made easier to understand.

[jraph]

This clause doesn't allow people to write you, it prevents them from doing stuff without written permission.

And that's the default. Trademark laws and laws that protect individuals already work like this. I'm not even sure this clause is strictly necessary in the BSD license.

I assume they've carefully evaluated this change with a lawyer.

[cma]

The way the clause was in there gives them more rights than a trademark; if their term becomes genericized they could still enforce it on people distributing the code. And other uses of the mark that could normally be allowed could be restricted.

[eurleif]

I'm not a lawyer and I haven't studied the relevant laws, but I'm quite skeptical that trademark and publicity rights align with a broad prohibition on using the names of copyright holders to "endorse or promote" without "specific prior written permission". That phrasing could be interpreted to prohibit, for example, giving an interview about your derived work, and making the factual statement: "It's based on software called Foo, which was written by a guy named John Smith." No endorsement is implied, but you are using John Smith's name in an interview which is perhaps intended for promotional purposes.

Even if this restriction does align with US law, I will be flabbergasted if it aligns with the laws of every other country as well.

[jraph]

I'm quite convinced this clause says you cannot make it seem like the original authors endorse your derivative product, the BSD license is so widespread I would assume if your interpretation was correct we would have seen many issues by now, but IANAL too. I do hope you are wrong :-)

[odo1242]

I mean, PHP license clause 3 & 4 seems to say this already:

  3. The name "PHP" must not be used to endorse or promote products
     derived from this software without prior written permission. For
     written permission, please contact [e-mail].

  4. Products derived from this software may not be called "PHP", nor
     may "PHP" appear in their name, without prior written permission
     from [e-mail].  You may indicate that your software works in
     conjunction with PHP by saying "Foo for PHP" instead of calling
     it "PHP Foo" or "phpfoo"

Edit: there may be more context than I thought

[echelon]

(I've edited my comment slightly, but not in a way that changes the context of your response.)

PHP License Clause 3 & 4 are about protecting PHP branding. Modified BSD Clause 3 is about using the software author's name or likeness as endorsement. For example, it limits putting antirez's face and name on our managed Redis product without obtaining his permission.

[jraph]

I don't think it does because trademark laws and individual rights already work like this by default.

[odo1242]

Ah interesting

[samsk]

IANAL, but the new license applies only to new PHP versions, changing it backwards would require approvals. If you don't contribute under new license, you should be not affected.

[jraph]

The new license covers and applies to all the code, even code that was written before the change.

You can totally change the license of already released code, if the change is compatible with the precious license or if you have permission from all the contributors whose code is still present in significant amount. (However, you can't prevent people from using the released code under the former license)

[sjs382]

Previously released versions are still available under the terms under which they were originally released.

[jraph]

Yep, that's my "however". For PHP, the new license will apply to version 9 and later if the proposal is adopted.

[hnarn]

So what do you mean by "you can totally change the license of already released code"? If the license only applies to version 9 and forward, then in any practical sense the license has not been changed for "released code".

[jraph]

I was generic and not talking about PHP specifically. In the case of PHP, this isn't happening, so if you are only concerned with PHP, you can ignore these theoretical considerations (however, because of the "or later" clause of the PHP license, you'll actually be able to use older versions of PHP under the new license).

That said, my point was: as the author, if you have previously released software S version V under license L1, nothing prevents you from releasing software S version V again under a new license L2 provided all the contributors of significant portions of software S version 1 agree or L1 happens to allow this additional license (because it's permissive, or because it has a "or later" clause or some other means).

Of course, re-release under a new license or not, software S version V can be used under license L1 "forever" and users can choose to ignore the L2 release completely. You cannot remove license L1, you can only offer an additional possibility (using software S version V under the new license, which you didn't allow before the re-release unless the relicensing was allowed by L1).

I've not seen this done, but I can imagine this being useful if someone needs specifically software S version V under the new license. Usually, people can just use newer versions under the new license though.

I admit my comment was terse (and a further edition probably removed important phrasing), I hope this one makes things clearer.

[zdragnar]

I believe only the rights holders need to approve of the retroactive changes, and so they really only need Perforce (presumably the rights holder as the current owner of the former Zend Technologies) to agree.

[LawnGnome]

Very pedantically, because PHP doesn't require copyright assignment, it would be (almost certainly) impossible to retroactively change the licence on older versions.

However, since the PHP and Zend licences both permit the user to use PHP under the terms of whatever licence version was applied to that PHP version or any later version, the point is essentially moot, since a user can choose to use the new version of the PHP/Zend licence once published, which will give them the same rights.