The OSD section 7 and the PHP/Zend licenses

[Bruce Perens]

excuse me for coming into this discussion late.

Russ mentioned on Slashdot that OSI might decide to change OSD section 7
because it seems to disallow the PHP/Zend license combination. The rationale
for section 7 on the OSI web site seems to support this. However, this was
not my rationale for that section. If you read my rationale from my chapter
in "Open Sources", it says:

	
	7. Distribution of License.

	The rights attached to the program must apply to all to whom
	the program is redistributed without the need for execution of
	an additional license by those parties.

	[Rationale]
	The license must be automatic, no signature
	required. Unfortunately, there has not been a good court test in
	the U.S. of the power of a no-signature-required license when it
	is passed from a second party to a third. However, this argument
	considers the license in the body of contract law, while some
	argue that it should be considered as copyright law, where there
	is more precedent for no-signature licenses. A good court test
	will no doubt happen in the next few years, given the popularity
	of this sort of license and the booming nature of Open Source.

So, I wrote this intending that it mean "you should not have to sign and mail
in a license to use or distribute a piece of Open Source software. Instead,
the license should apply to you automaticaly, without your having to take any
special steps to execute it.

Whatever OSI does, you should be careful to not invalidate the "no additional
signature required" sense of #7. It would be a disaster to do so.

In addition, I think the matter of the PHP/Zend license pair being compliant
with the OSD is a simple matter of the license structure. The PHP license
should be for PHP and not mention Zend. The Zend license should grant special
rights for use with PHP and another set of rights that is fully OSD compliant.
Then there is really no question of its OSD compliance. This is not a change of
license terms, just a change of _where_ the terms are, from the PHP license to
the Zend license.

	Thanks

	Bruce