Are PHP libraries linked dynamically or statically?

[Martin Larsen]

Hi,

When a PHP program links to a library using include or require (or their
_once variations), is the library then linked dynamically or statically?

While it might seem irrelevant from a technical point of view, the
linking method is important when it comes to licencing issues as some
licences, like GPL, differ between those kinds of linking when it comes
to viewing the library as a derivative work of the main program.

Therefore it is quite important to know what kind of linking is in
effect when including libraries, and I hope someone in this group can
shed some light on this matter.

Thank you very much in advance,
Martin

[Anonymous]

Jerry Stuckle wrote:

If it interfaces to Joomla, it uses their code.

No, it doesn't. It just calls a function which is unavaliable. If the
function is unavaliable my program does not run. That's it. If Joomla
happens to have functions that have the same name and make sense in the
context so that my program actually does something useful, that's great.
But that does not make my program a part of Joomla or Joomla a part of
my program.

Which means your program requires Joomla to run. Your attempt to

So what? That means a user either has to have a license to both (my
program and Joomla) or he can't run my program.

However, if I choose to provide my program in a nonfunctional single
package which only contains my code I can choose to use any license I
like. And users who want to use my program and put Joomla and my program
together will have to abide by both li

Yes. But if you want to call Joomla functions you have to abide by
their requirements to use those functions.

No, I don't. Not as long as I don't supply the functions together with
my program. As Toby already correctly put it: Who says I am using Joomla
functions? I (or someone else) could also program a compatible API to
work with my program which would eliminate the need for Joomla.

As long as I don't deliver Joomla together with my program, it has
nothing to do with Joomla at all.

And you come here looking for free legal advice, then throw out anything
which you don't agree with.

I do? I was answering questions, not asking them. Check the thread. I am
very well aware of the current legalities concerning computers and
software.

[Jerry Stuckle]

Anonymous wrote:

Jerry Stuckle wrote:

>>>If it interfaces to Joomla, it uses their code.
No, it doesn't. It just calls a function which is unavaliable. If the
function is unavaliable my program does not run. That's it. If Joomla
happens to have functions that have the same name and make sense in the
context so that my program actually does something useful, that's great.
But that does not make my program a part of Joomla or Joomla a part of
my program.

Which means your program requires Joomla to run. Your attempt to

So what? That means a user either has to have a license to both (my
program and Joomla) or he can't run my program.

>>However, if I choose to provide my program in a nonfunctional single
package which only contains my code I can choose to use any license I
like. And users who want to use my program and put Joomla and my program
together will have to abide by both li

Yes. But if you want to call Joomla functions you have to abide by
their requirements to use those functions.

No, I don't. Not as long as I don't supply the functions together with
my program. As Toby already correctly put it: Who says I am using Joomla
functions? I (or someone else) could also program a compatible API to
work with my program which would eliminate the need for Joomla.

As long as I don't deliver Joomla together with my program, it has
nothing to do with Joomla at all.

>And you come here looking for free legal advice, then throw out anything
which you don't agree with.

I do? I was answering questions, not asking them. Check the thread. I am
very well aware of the current legalities concerning computers and
software.

You really need to see an attorney. You could find yourself out of
thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars, should Joomla choose to
enforce their license agreement.

And you obviously are NOT familiar with the current legalities
concerning computers and software!

--
=============== ===
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
js*******@attgl obal.net
=============== ===

[Jerry Stuckle]

Toby A Inkster wrote:

Jerry Stuckle wrote:

>Linux itself is GPL - but its license does not require programs calling
its APIs to be GPL. Joomla is taking that one step further and
requiring programs using its API to be GPL.

Perfectly within their rights.

But what they seem to be claiming is that the GPL itself demands that all
plugins must be GPL'd, and I disagree with that interpretation.

Yes, it is well within their rights to demand that plugins are GPL -- but
then they are enforcing conditions over and above what the GPL requires.

They may interpret it as that way - I haven't seen their reasoning, and
quite frankly haven't checked their license in detail. But they are
completely within their rights to enforce conditions above and beyond
what GPL requires. They just can't require LESS than what GPL requires.

--
=============== ===
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
js*******@attgl obal.net
=============== ===

[Martin Larsen]

Jerry Stuckle wrote:

They may interpret it as that way - I haven't seen their reasoning, and
quite frankly haven't checked their license in detail. But they are
completely within their rights to enforce conditions above and beyond
what GPL requires. They just can't require LESS than what GPL requires.

I can't say whether or not this is true (only the court can).

However, I started this thread because I don't buy their arguments *why*
plugins has to be GPL.

To recap, they say:

1. Plugins has to be GPL because they are derivative work of Joomla
2. They are derivative work of Joomla because they are statically linked
to it.

That is the reason for me asking the question in the subject. And as you
have pointed out, it really doesn't make much sense to talk about linking.

The conclusion is that their arguments are entirely wrong.

You asked in another post in this thread if there is another CMS that
the plugin can be used with. There is: Mambo.

Joomla is a fork of Mambo, and while Mambo is also GPL, the Mambo
Foundation welcomes non-GPL plugins for the CMS. At this stage of the
fork, the common code base is still large enough for a great many
plugins to run under both systems without modications.

There are also other forks, btw.

So it is actually possible to sit in this white room without access to
Joomla's code and write plugins for it, without using a single line of
its code, and on top of it, have it running under Mambo too.

Many plugins (at least the ones I wrote) can in a short time be modified
to run standalone. Actually, one of my plugins is also published in a
standalone version. The code it the same, except the interfact part to
Joomla's API.

Martin

[Jerry Stuckle]

Martin Larsen wrote:

Jerry Stuckle wrote:

>They may interpret it as that way - I haven't seen their reasoning,
and quite frankly haven't checked their license in detail. But they
are completely within their rights to enforce conditions above and
beyond what GPL requires. They just can't require LESS than what GPL
requires.

I can't say whether or not this is true (only the court can).

However, I started this thread because I don't buy their arguments *why*
plugins has to be GPL.

To recap, they say:

1. Plugins has to be GPL because they are derivative work of Joomla
2. They are derivative work of Joomla because they are statically linked
to it.

That is the reason for me asking the question in the subject. And as you
have pointed out, it really doesn't make much sense to talk about linking.

The conclusion is that their arguments are entirely wrong.

You asked in another post in this thread if there is another CMS that
the plugin can be used with. There is: Mambo.

Joomla is a fork of Mambo, and while Mambo is also GPL, the Mambo
Foundation welcomes non-GPL plugins for the CMS. At this stage of the
fork, the common code base is still large enough for a great many
plugins to run under both systems without modications.

There are also other forks, btw.

So it is actually possible to sit in this white room without access to
Joomla's code and write plugins for it, without using a single line of
its code, and on top of it, have it running under Mambo too.

Many plugins (at least the ones I wrote) can in a short time be modified
to run standalone. Actually, one of my plugins is also published in a
standalone version. The code it the same, except the interfact part to
Joomla's API.

Martin

This is a legal issue.l See your attorney.

Free legal advice (especially in this newsgroup) is worth exactly what
you paid for it.

--
=============== ===
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
js*******@attgl obal.net
=============== ===

[Henk verhoeven]

Jerry Stuckle wrote:

Henk verhoeven wrote:

>NC wrote:

>>On Jul 20, 5:30 am, Martin Larsen <martin+spamfre e+lar...@bigfoo t.com>
wrote:

(..)

Actually, it does. Unless you have implemented a PHP optimizer, every
PHP file is interpreted every time you load the file.

That may be true, but i was talking about function calls.

There is no intermediate code.

IMHO either you are mistaken or the developers of php are, even the
primitivce Commodore 64 BASIC interpreter converted commands and
function calls to opcodes so that repeated execution of a subroutine
would not require reparsing of the source code. Loops often run hundreds
of times, I doubt if the current level of performance on OOP code (which
tends to make lots of function calls intersecting many files) would be
possible if all functions that are called from loops where reparsed for
every call.

>"A consequence is that if you choose to use GPL'd Perl modules or Java
classes in your program, you must release the program in a
GPL-compatible way, regardless of the license used in the Perl or Java
interpreter that the combined Perl or Java program will run on." See
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq....terpreterIsGPL

(The terms "use" and "release" may also not be what you think. Here it
becomes really tricky, i rather avoid making comments on that)

Which has absolutely nothing to do with whether something is statically
or dynamically linked.

>BTW, running a program that is using a GPL-ed library on your own
public website might have consequences with the new version of GPL
(gpl3), see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#UnreleasedMods

Again, nothing to do with the current discussion.

Again? Maybe the discussion has been narrowed to the technical meaning
of static versus dynamic linking, but Martin Larsen did mention GPL in
his original post, so i think the juridical meaning of linking *is*
subject of the original discussion and that i can help him by bringing
it back into the current discussion. The FSF FAQ are probably meant to
help non-lawyers to understand the juridical meaning of their GPL
license, they *may* have to do with the juridical meaning of linking.

[Martin Larsen]

Jerry Stuckle wrote:

This is a legal issue.l See your attorney.

God the allmighty has spoken.