PHP RFC: Switching to 3-clause BSD licence

15 points by jmillikin

0mp

Hmm, it’s interesting that such an old project is able to change the license. I’d imagine that CLAs were not really a thing when PHP started and it’s not easy to reach everyone who contributed over the years to agree to the license change. I couldn’t find the answer to that in the article but I probably just missed it.

terinjokes

The license has a “or later” clause they’re exercising by having the PHP Group designate the 3-clause Modified BSD license as “PHP License, version 4” (and similarly for the Zend license).
- colejohnson66
  
  While they definitely can call it “PHP License, v4”, the only mention of that is in the first paragraph of the proposal. Everywhere else they reference the “modified BSD license” or “3-clause BSD license”. They go as far as using that terminology and the SPDX identifier BSD-3-clause in file headers! That heavily implies it’s the BSD license, not the PHP license.
  
  To me, that’s a relicensing, not a license update. I’m open to being wrong.
  - terinjokes
    
    I see it as three things that are happening simultaneously: 1) The PHP Group designates the Modified BSD as “PHP License, v4”, which is allowed to be upgraded to by the current license, 2) the PHP Group is deprecating the PHP License as a distinct thing, 3) the PHP community is simplifying nomenclature by using the better recognized and understood named for the same license as “PHP License, v4”.
  - mjec
    
    If the project changed its name from PHP to OGO, and started referring to its license as the OGO license (but with all the same terms), would you also consider that a relicensing?
    
    If they referred to it as the PHP license throughout but it had identical terms to the 3 clause BSD license, would you consider that just an update?