ExtPHP now on Github
About 10 months ago, I released this tool, allowing developers to handle ExtJS like “managed” code in PHP: ExtPHP.
Shortly thereafter, Jack Slocum changed ExtJS’ licensing model and it all became very muddy but my main question was: “As a commercial user, what would the status of the extensions be?”
It seems that it’s OK to create an extension and not GPL it as long as it doesn’t contain any ExtJS original code. The claim is that most extensions now fall under that category. Of course, there is still the risk of an extension still containing ExtJS code — hint: that’s very likely — and the company who paid for ExtJS commercial licensing is now burdened with…what? De-facto GPL code? Or does the code that was reused considered “commercially licensed” as well? Even though it is part of an open-source extension?
Ten months later, I am not getting a sense that things were clarified well enough. Look at this topic on ExtJS’ forums. It looks like, after September, everybody gave up.
So, what now?
Well, if anyone could point me to a comprehensive answer regarding this issue, that will sure help me decide whether to revisit my decision to give up on ExtJS from a commercial standpoint.
In the meantime, ExtPHP is now available at Github.
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January 27, 2009 @ 3:38 pm
I would follow the dual-licensing strategy Ext has chosen. I am about to use Ext on a commercial closed-source project and the fact that commercial licensing is available in addition to GPL quickly made Ext the #1 choice ahead of YUI and the rest. I would not touch it if it was GPL3.0 only.
If I were you I would do the same with your code. Right now, I would seriously consider buying a non-GPL license from you for ExtPHP instead of attempting to write a similar wrapper myself.