NYCPHP Meetup

[Jon Baer]

I just gave a talk @ NYCwireless on the WRT54G router and this came up, you should google for the discussions between Linksys and their position on 
the GPL because it puts a better perspective on it (for me anyways) and it was an interesting case where they have absolutley no choice but to release 
the code or face the Stallman wrath.  On the flip side from what I read, Linus made comments pertaining to "modules" which do not need to be open and 
can be provided as binary form only.  So in the case of the router, the source is completely available except Broadcom not releasing source code for 
the radio drivers.  I think the saying would be "anything that happens at the GPL stays at the GPL", but if you based code on something you wrote from 
scratch, released it as a binary "module", it would be ok (guessing).

I would venture and take a guess that the same applies in the area of PHP, the extensions can be released closed, although I have not personally seen 
any closed extensions for PHP anywhere.  I dont know what the rules are governing including "php.h" (and its functions).  You are really not making 
modifications to PHP itself.  

However Im sure if it was later found out that you did use GPL material (as in the Linksys case), it would be a no no.

- Jon (not a lawyer)

On Fri, Jul 02, 2004 at 09:58:06AM -0400, Tim Gales wrote:
> Does the client have to keep track of all 
> the changes he makes, because he is forced 
> by the GPL license to give them back to 
> the open source community from which the 
> original code came from.

-- 
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