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cpliakas / php-project-starter

A command line tool that allows developers to quickly create PHP applications that use common conventions and best-in-breed development tools.
MIT License
75 stars 23 forks source link

Default suggested license GPL to v2+ or v3 #26

Open pwolanin opened 10 years ago

pwolanin commented 10 years ago

Distributing code under the same license and rights as Drupal seems to be a better default.

While most PHP by it's nature has its source code accessible, I think it's an important to emphasize the principle of support for free software and to help developers understand the advantages of using a free software license.

psynaptic commented 10 years ago

MIT is less restrictive though. I use MIT for my projects so they can be more freely used, rather than requiring that the project using it must be GPL too. I don't think this project really has anything to do with Drupal. It is for abstract components that could be used in any PHP project (including Drupal).

pwolanin commented 10 years ago

It's more about the principle. I've been a bit turned off seeing non-PHP code I've contributed a little bit too turned into a closed-source commercial offering.

cpliakas commented 10 years ago

I agree with @psynaptic's comments, although that isn't the reason why this project defaults to an MIT license. I understand from an open source purity standpoint how it can be frustrating to contribute to something that turns closed source, however the goal of this project is to default to what the PHP community has adopted on not to push principles. I don't have hard data to back it up, but the MIT license seems to be the most often used on the most popular projects e.g. Symfony, Doctrine, Monolog, Composer, etc.

This is also a template, so you can swap out the license to your liking. In addition, #20 is designed to make it easier to start projects with other licenses such as GPLed code. I'd also be happy to explore a system where the user can set defaults like licenses to better fit their repeated use cases. With that being said, I am not in favor of changing the default license to something other than MIT unless there is clear data suggesting that that majority of the most popular PHP libraries and frameworks use something else. I do understand that Drupal and Wordpress are GPLed, however PHP Project Starter is most likely going to be used to start projects that are unlike the two CMSes mentioned above.

pwolanin commented 10 years ago

Thanks, it would be nice to have it as an obvious option and/or default at least.

Even if GPL is not the default, if might be useful to also document briefly why considering GPL or even AGPL is important.

On Wed, Mar 12, 2014 at 2:35 PM, Chris Pliakas notifications@github.comwrote:

I agree with @psynaptic https://github.com/psynaptic's assessment. I understand from an open source purity standpoint how it can be frustrating to contribute to something that turns closed source, however the goal of this project is to default to what the PHP community has adopted on not to push principles. I don't have hard data to back it up, but the MIT license seems to be the most often used on the most popular projects e.g. Symfony, Doctrine, Monolog, Composer, etc.

This is also a template, so you can swap out the license to your liking. In addition, #20https://github.com/cpliakas/php-project-starter/issues/20is designed to make it easier to start projects with other licenses such as GPLed code. I'd also be happy to explore a system where the user can set defaults like licenses to better fit their repeated use cases. With that being said, I am not in favor of changing the default license to something other than MIT unless there is clear data suggesting that that majority of the most popular PHP libraries and frameworks use something else. I do understand that Drupal and Wordpress are GPLed, however PHP project started is most likely going to be used to start different types of projects than CMSes like the two mentioned above.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/cpliakas/php-project-starter/issues/26#issuecomment-37446591 .

Peter M. Wolanin, Ph.D. : Momentum Specialist, Acquia. Inc. peter.wolanin@acquia.com : 781-313-8322

cpliakas commented 10 years ago

I am thinking of a --license option with the common licenses as identified by Composer in the default implementation. Since licenses don't change, would be happy to accept pull requests for any of the licenses in the SPDX registry.

Also, to me http://choosealicense.com/ is a really concise overview that helps guide licensing decisions. It is less opinionated, but it does highlight that GPL is the license of choice if you care about sharing. Are there other resources worth highlighting? I do agree that PHP project starter should provide some guidance when choices are being presented.