Hi, For reference, this is #513796 in the BTS.
To summarise, php5-xapian wraps the GPLv2+ licensed Xapian library for PHP v3.01 licensed PHP5. The two licences are regarded as incompatible due to the restriction on names containing "PHP" in clause 4 of the PHP licence. The build process doesn't link against PHP (on Linux), though it does use PHP API header files. PHP is a rather noisy search term (since lots of URLs end ".php") but my research of past debian-legal discussion eventually found this from Steve Langasek: There are several other PHP extensions in circulation that use GPLed libraries, some of them distributed with the PHP source itself. (The readline extension is one example.) Binaries for these modules can't be distributed in Debian, but that doesn't mean you can't write a PHP extension for a GPL library and distribute it on your own. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.debian.devel.legal/7867 Also, note that Xapian upstream don't control the copyright of all the code, so aren't able to add a special exception to the licence to allow for the PHP naming restriction. And it seems from past debian-legal discussion that PHP upstream are rather attached to this clause (though it seems to me a trademark would achieve the intended ends much better as a licence clause only has power over software derived from PHP itself). So I don't see relicensing as a plausible route for fixing this problem. So my questions are: * Is the quote above an accurate summary of the currently accepted interpretation? (That mail is from 2003 so perhaps things have changed since). * If so, is there anything which can be done other than removing php5-xapian from the archive? * Assuming php5-xapian must be removed from the archive, can the xapian-bindings source package (which builds bindings for python, ruby, etc too) continue to include (now unused) source code for it, or do I need to prepare a special "dfsg" version of the upstream source tarball without this code? (I notice Steve says "binaries for these modules", which hints that source may be OK). Cheers, Olly -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org