Rogue Wave Software acquires enterprise PHP leader Zend

PHP won't die!

http://ctankersley.com/2015/10/06/zends-acquisition-doesnt-matter/

PHP, and the Zend Engine, currently follow the PHP License. There's a line

at the top though that has people worried:
Copyright (c) 1999-2006 Zend Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved.
Zend holds the copyright to the Zend Engine, and thus the ability to set
the license on the Zend Engine. What's the Zend Engine? It's the thing that
makes PHP... well, PHP. It turns our written code into something servers
understand, and makes things work. The only major player that compares to
it is HHVM (yes, there are others, but HHVM is the only one I've seen with
real traction).
So, as copyright holder, Zend/RogueWave is well within their rights to
change the license to something more permissive, or lock it down. It is
their choice.
If they do decide to do that, they can't change it retroactively. The PHP
Community as a whole can continue to use previous versions of the Zend
Engine, as long as they continue to follow the PHP License, and ignore the
"new" Zend Engine. Life would find a way.
There's precedent for that in fact, as when Zend suddenly showed up with
phpng, there was some talk about not using it. We're a fickle group, and
PHP internals could, and would, move away from the Zend Engine if needed.
We'd also gladly continue to use older versions of Zend Engine before the
license change.
Worse case, we're all switching to HHVM and we have a few minor bugs to
figure out.

The license cannot be changed without approvals of every contributor
to date. I very much doubt they will. And to make that point clear for
me, if they do and come with anything but the PHP license, I can
already say that I won't accept it.

First, a license change may be necessary from their side in case "Zend
Technologies Ltd" ceases to exist.

Second, never say never. The PHP and Zend licenses are just BSD licenses
with a few more or less irrelevant (to the code, the project, and its
future) additional sections about the use of the word "PHP" in product
names and that you must under no circumstance feed an Elephpant spinach on
the last Friday of the month or something like that.

So a switch to "pure" BSD, for example, probably wouldn't be a big deal,
even to you, would it?

David

--

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Marcel AraujoAnalista de SistemasDesenvolvedor
PHP/Zend/JavaScript/jQuery/NodeJSLinux User
#490101http://www.twitter.com/marcelarauj0
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The license cannot be changed without approvals of every contributor
to date. I very much doubt they will. And to make that point clear for
me, if they do and come with anything but the PHP license, I can
already say that I won't accept it.

First, a license change may be necessary from their side in case "Zend
Technologies Ltd" ceases to exist.

Second, never say never. The PHP and Zend licenses are just BSD licenses
with a few more or less irrelevant (to the code, the project, and its
future) additional sections about the use of the word "PHP" in product
names and that you must under no circumstance feed an Elephpant spinach on
the last Friday of the month or something like that.

So a switch to "pure" BSD, for example, probably wouldn't be a big deal,
even to you, would it?

Last word on the matter for now (because it does not matter much ;), yes
it will be a big deal. I am strongly in favor of one come license for the
core.