[Xapian-discuss] PHP bindings license problem

[James Aylett]

On Mon, Aug 20, 2007 at 08:57:24AM -0700, Alexander Lind wrote:

> Does anyone know exactly what the outcome of this will be, and when a 
> final decision will be made on the PHP bindings being or not being?

I haven't discussed this with Richard or Olly, but I believe we'll
have to remove PHP bindings from the distribution in a fairly near
future version, unless we can get legal advice that this isn't
actually an issue for us.

> If the final result is a negative one, could someone perhaps offer some 
> pointers on how I can go about creating my own PHP bindings using SWIG?

IANAL, but I think you can just take the existing ones, providing you
don't distribute them. (Because you are *not* required to *use*
anything we distribute under the GPL, merely to redistribute under the
GPL. However you need this to be true in any case, because the whole
of Xapian is GPL licensed.)

I stress: this needs a lawyer, and if you want to proceed on this, you
should consult one for your territory. You'll need to do that even if
you don't use code from our existing bindings, to make sure you aren't
violating the *PHP* license by linking across to something that is GPL
licensed (even assuming that you don't violate the GPL license by
linking in the other direction).

Alternatively, find or build yourself a Xapian application server, and
talk HTTP to it from PHP. That has zero legal risk as far as anyone
knows.

J

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  James Aylett                                                  xapian.org
  james at tartarus.org                               uncertaintydivision.org