PEAR/Archive Issue

[Rob Schley]

Hi All,

There is an issue in the archive package of the Joomla 1.5 framework that needs to be addressed. JArchive::create() relies on Archive_Tar and PEAR. Archive_Tar was distributed under the PHP license but it has recently relicensed to the GPL, if I remember correctly. PEAR, on the other hand, is still licensed under the PHP license which is incompatible with the GPL and thus is incompatible with the Joomla framework. We've known about this issue for a while but have had trouble finding a suitable replacement and someone with the free time to actually implement it. So, we are faced with the situation where we need to get a replacement archive library or we will have to drop the JArchive::create() method. Seeing as how Joomla 1.5 is stable and we've agreed that we should not make any API changes that can lead to incompatibilities it is more desirable to find a GPL compatible archive package that we could use to replace Archive_Tar and PEAR while keeping the same functionality and API. So, we're hoping that this will pique someone's interest and hopefully lead to a patch that can be applied to the next Joomla 1.5 release. Let me know if you have any questions.

Best,

Rob

[Ian MacLennan]

Actually, it was relicensed to BSD, but close enough.

I would think that we could remove the dependency on PEAR though and
achieve compliance that way.

Ian

[Andrew Eddie]

I've already asked Gergo to look at it un-PEAR-ing the Archive_Tar
class so it's in hand :)

Regards,
Andrew Eddie
http://www.theartofjoomla.com - the art of becoming a Joomla developer




2009/3/28 Rob Schley <rob.s...@community.joomla.org>:

[Louis Landry]

*cough*

What Andrew means is that if anyone wants to help out on this or has some specific ideas... hit Gergo up with them.. he's leading this effort.  Thanks a ton Gergo!

- Louis

--
Development Coordinator
Joomla! ... because open source matters.
http://www.joomla.org

[Ian MacLennan]

Just thought I'd mention that I wrote some unit tests for Archive Tar
a while back that are in instance_trunk.

Ian

[Erdősi Gergő]

Hi,

As I discussed it with Andrew, I will look at this PEAR issue. I will
be very busy in the next few days (especially until Tuesday), but next
week I'll start working on it. If anyone want to help me in this, just
send me a mail.

Gergő Erdősi


On Mar 27, 7:06 pm, Rob Schley <rob.sch...@community.joomla.org>
wrote:

[Erdősi Gergő]

Hi,

I have good news, the first patch is ready! It's not the final patch,
I just want to get feedback whether I'm on a good way or not. This
patch replaces PEAR and Archive_Tar with a library licensed under GNU
GPL. This is compatible with PHP 4, so I think it is exactly what we
need. This library change won't cause any problems for existing
scripts, I rewrote Jarchive::create() to work like before. There are
only two exceptions: $addPath and $removePath attributes. I'm not sure
that the new library supports them. Someone should look at whether it
is possible to use these attributes with the new library. However if
it is not possible, then I think it's better not to have these
attributes rather then removing the whole method. Some notes/
questions:

- The original create() method had 'tar' as default compression type,
but PEAR supports only gz and bz2. So the user always got an error if
$compress attribute was not set correctly. The new library supports
'tar', so there is no need to change it. The new library supports
'tar' and 'zip' in addition to PEAR's 'gz' and 'bz2'.

- As I said in the previous paragraph, the new library supports 'zip'.
But we have an own zip create function:
$zip =& JArchive::getAdapter('zip');
$zip->create($archive, $files);

I don't know what to do with this duplication... So the user currently
has two ways to create a zip file. It's not problem, but more than
what we need... I can't and I don't want to remove the create()
function from the zip adapter file, because existing scripts may use
it. Maybe an option would be add a create() function to all adapter
files and use a JArchive::getAdapter() call in JArchive::create() I
don't know...

The patch is in the tracker:
http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/tracker/?action=TrackerItemEdit&tracker_item_id=15810

Gergő Erdősi


On Mar 27, 8:06 pm, Rob Schley <rob.sch...@community.joomla.org>
wrote:

[Sam Moffatt]

I'm confused, the Archive_Tar library was relicensed as GPL all that
was needed was to kill the references to PEAR. We can include
Archive_Tar no issues but we can't include PEAR because its still
under the PHP license. All that was needed was a quick once over the
Archive_Tar file to probably remove the PEAR constructor and replace
PEAR's error handling with JError/JException.


Sam Moffatt
http://pasamio.id.au



2009/4/6 Erdősi Gergő <gergo....@gmail.com>:

[Erdősi Gergő]

Well, the license of Archive_Tar is 'New BSD License', not GPL and I'm
not sure that it is compatible with the GNU GPL license... I'm going
to ask Elin about this. If it is compatible, then I misunderstood the
issue, I thought un-pearing means removing the whole pear library and
find an alternative. If it's license is compatible and Archive_Tar can
work without PEAR, then I'll create a new patch.

Gergő Erdősi


2009/4/6 Sam Moffatt <pas...@gmail.com>:

--
Erdősi Gergő
http://www.joomline.hu - Joomla! fejlesztői oldal

[Sam Moffatt]

The New/Modified BSD License is compatible with GPL. It's the four
clause one with the ugly advertising clause that is the unapproved
one. This one is fine except it relies on the PHP licensed PEAR
library. All we need to do is basically strip out the PEAR references
from the file and we're done. Oh and kill the PEAR.php file but once
we have no dependencies we should be fine.

[Erdősi Gergő]

Ok, thanks for the information! I'm going to start writing the new
patch. Once I'm ready, will post an update here.

[Sam Moffatt]

Look forward to seeing it!

[Erdősi Gergő]

Hm, if New BSD License is compatible with GNU GPL, would not be easier
to update the PEAR library to 1.8.0 RC1, which has also a BSD license?
I know it is not a stable version, but we have approximately two
months until the release of 1.5.12, so during this time it may become
stable...

Gergő Erdősi

On Apr 6, 1:39 pm, Sam Moffatt <pasa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Look forward to seeing it!
>
> Sam Moffatthttp://pasamio.id.au
>

> 2009/4/6 Erdősi Gergő <gergo.erd...@gmail.com>:

>
>
>
> > Ok, thanks for the information! I'm going to start writing the new
> > patch. Once I'm ready, will post an update here.
>
> > Gergő Erdősi
>

> > 2009/4/6 Sam Moffatt <pasa...@gmail.com>:

>
> >> The New/Modified BSD License is compatible with GPL. It's the four
> >> clause one with the ugly advertising clause that is the unapproved
> >> one. This one is fine except it relies on the PHP licensed PEAR
> >> library. All we need to do is basically strip out the PEAR references
> >> from the file and we're done. Oh and kill the PEAR.php file but once
> >> we have no dependencies we should be fine.
>
> >> Sam Moffatt
> >>http://pasamio.id.au
>

> >> 2009/4/6 Erdősi Gergő <gergo.erd...@gmail.com>:

>
> >>> Well, the license of Archive_Tar is 'New BSD License', not GPL and I'm
> >>> not sure that it is compatible with the GNU GPL license... I'm going
> >>> to ask Elin about this. If it is compatible, then I misunderstood the
> >>> issue, I thought un-pearing means removing the whole pear library and
> >>> find an alternative. If it's license is compatible and Archive_Tar can
> >>> work without PEAR, then I'll create a new patch.
>
> >>> Gergő Erdősi
>

> >>> 2009/4/6 Sam Moffatt <pasa...@gmail.com>:

>
> >>>> I'm confused, the Archive_Tar library was relicensed as GPL all that
> >>>> was needed was to kill the references to PEAR. We can include
> >>>> Archive_Tar no issues but we can't include PEAR because its still
> >>>> under the PHP license. All that was needed was a quick once over the
> >>>> Archive_Tar file to probably remove the PEAR constructor and replace
> >>>> PEAR's error handling with JError/JException.
>
> >>>> Sam Moffatt
> >>>>http://pasamio.id.au
>

> >>>> 2009/4/6 Erdősi Gergő <gergo.erd...@gmail.com>:

> >>>>>http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/tracker/?action=TrackerItemEd...

>
> >>>>> Gergő Erdősi
>
> >>>>> On Mar 27, 8:06 pm, Rob Schley <rob.sch...@community.joomla.org>
> >>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>> Hi All,
> >>>>>> There is an issue in the archive package of the Joomla 1.5 framework that
> >>>>>> needs to be addressed. JArchive::create() relies on Archive_Tar and PEAR.
> >>>>>> Archive_Tar was distributed under the PHP license but it has recently
> >>>>>> relicensed to the GPL, if I remember correctly. PEAR, on the other hand, is
> >>>>>> still licensed under the PHP license which is incompatible with the GPL and
> >>>>>> thus is incompatible with the Joomla framework. We've known about this issue
> >>>>>> for a while but have had trouble finding a suitable replacement and someone
> >>>>>> with the free time to actually implement it. So, we are faced with the
> >>>>>> situation where we need to get a replacement archive library or we will have
> >>>>>> to drop the JArchive::create() method. Seeing as how Joomla 1.5 is stable
> >>>>>> and we've agreed that we should not make any API changes that can lead
> >>>>>> to incompatibilities it is more desirable to find a GPL compatible archive
> >>>>>> package that we could use to replace Archive_Tar and PEAR while keeping the
> >>>>>> same functionality and API. So, we're hoping that this will pique someone's
> >>>>>> interest and hopefully lead to a patch that can be applied to the next
> >>>>>> Joomla 1.5 release. Let me know if you have any questions.
>
> >>>>>> Best,
> >>>>>> Rob
>
> >>> --
> >>> Erdősi Gergő

> >>>http://www.joomline.hu- Joomla! fejlesztői oldal

[Sam Moffatt]

If PEAR is New/Mod BSD then I think most of our issues go away. PEAR
for us isn't an incredibly critical library so I'm not as hesitant
against upgrades as I would for other tools (e.g. the pdf lib). So
long as it doesn't break archive creation I have no major issues with
it as that's the only thing I believe its in there for. Cool your
heels for a few days and give Rob a chance to respond after LV, but
if PEAR+Archive_Tar is BSD I think that resolves most of our major
problems with the entire kit - we'd just need to upgrade.

Sam Moffatt
http://pasamio.id.au



2009/4/6 Erdősi Gergő <gergo....@gmail.com>:

[Erdősi Gergő]

Ok, thanks. Today I'll update this library to test whether it causes
any problems.


2009/4/6 Sam Moffatt <pas...@gmail.com>:

[Sam Moffatt]

Will also need to check that its backwards compat with the older PEAR
version and if it runs still on PHP4 since 1.5 still supports PHP4.

[Erdősi Gergő]

Well, PEAR 1.8.0 runs on PHP 4, however our minimal requirement is PHP
4.3.10, but PEAR's is 4.4.0.


2009/4/6 Sam Moffatt <pas...@gmail.com>:

[elin]

Archive was relicensed, the rest of PEAR was not.

Elin

On Apr 6, 8:54 am, Erdősi Gergő <gergo.erd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, PEAR 1.8.0 runs on PHP 4, however our minimal requirement is PHP
> 4.3.10, but PEAR's is 4.4.0.
>

> 2009/4/6 Sam Moffatt <pasa...@gmail.com>:

>
>
>
>
>
> > Will also need to check that its backwards compat with the older PEAR
> > version and if it runs still on PHP4 since 1.5 still supports PHP4.
>
> > Sam Moffatt
> >http://pasamio.id.au
>

> > 2009/4/6 Erdősi Gergő <gergo.erd...@gmail.com>:

>
> >> Ok, thanks. Today I'll update this library to test whether it causes
> >> any problems.
>

> >> 2009/4/6 Sam Moffatt <pasa...@gmail.com>:

>
> >>> If PEAR is New/Mod BSD then I think most of our issues go away. PEAR
> >>> for us isn't an incredibly critical library so I'm not as hesitant
> >>> against upgrades as I would for other tools (e.g. the pdf lib). So
> >>> long as it doesn't break archive creation I have no major issues with
> >>> it as that's the only thing I believe its in there for. Cool your
> >>> heels for a few days and give Rob  a chance to respond after LV, but
> >>> if PEAR+Archive_Tar is BSD I think that resolves most of our major
> >>> problems with the entire kit - we'd just need to upgrade.
>
> >>> Sam Moffatt
> >>>http://pasamio.id.au
>

> >>> 2009/4/6 Erdősi Gergő <gergo.erd...@gmail.com>:

> >>>>> >>>http://www.joomline.hu-Joomla! fejlesztői oldal
>
> >>>>> > --
> >>>>> > Erdősi Gergő
> >>>>> >http://www.joomline.hu-Joomla! fejlesztői oldal

[Erdősi Gergő]

It says New BSD License, and I can see the same in the downloaded code:
http://pear.php.net/package/PEAR


2009/4/6 elin <elin....@gmail.com>:

[Ian MacLennan]

http://cvs.php.net/viewvc.cgi/pear-core/LICENSE?view=markup

It does seem the PEAR was updated to 2 clause BSD.

I don't know how this fits in with our release schedule, but it would be interesting to keep an eye on. I also see that the Archive_Tar version that we packaged has been released.

Ian

2009/4/6 Erdősi Gergő <gergo....@gmail.com>

[Andrew Eddie]

If we can just get a relicensed PEAR, that would suffice for 1.5. The
gives us time to rebuild code in 1.6 that is not PEAR dependent. I
agree with Sam on the fact that this is a low risk upgrade. However,
we should still clearly communicate this to the 3PD community before
the next release just in case we've missed something.

Regards,
Andrew Eddie
http://www.theartofjoomla.com - the art of becoming a Joomla developer

2009/4/6 Ian MacLennan <ianl...@gmail.com>:

[Andrew Eddie]

Sorry if my instructions were not as clear as they could have been Gergo.

Regards,
Andrew Eddie
http://www.theartofjoomla.com - the art of becoming a Joomla developer

2009/4/6 Erdősi Gergő <gergo....@gmail.com>:

[Erdősi Gergő]

No problem Andrew, I'm sure you instructions were clear, it was just
me who misunderstood them. :) I attached a new patch to the tracker
(15810-2.patch) which updates PEAR and Archive_Tar to the latest
versions:
http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/tracker/?action=TrackerItemEdit&tracker_item_id=15810

According to the patch basically it should work, there weren't major
changes. In my early tests it works, but of course it needs a deeper
testing. Ian mentioned that he wrote some unit tests for this, would
be good to run it. (@Ian: Could you please share that unit test with
us?


2009/4/7 Andrew Eddie <mamb...@gmail.com>:

[Ian MacLennan]

The unit tests are in instance_trunk in the testing branch on Joomlacode.

Once you follow the unit testing setup instructions (using the instance_trunk branch - I don't know if it works in trunk or not).

The tests are in the libraries/pear/archive_tar directory.

Ian

2009/4/7 Erdősi Gergő <gergo....@gmail.com>

[Erdősi Gergő]

Thanks, I'll check it out!


2009/4/7 Ian MacLennan <ianl...@gmail.com>:

[Rob Schley]

Okay, there's been a lot of back and forth in this thread so I want to try to clear a couple of things up:

1) Gergo, you've already created a patch that replaces the PEAR/Archive_TAR libraries with a new GPL library.

2) PEAR/Archive_TAR are both BSD licensed now but the new versions are not stable and PEAR's minimum requirements are higher than ours.

Are both of those things true? If so, I'm actually inclined to go with Gergo's original patch and just drop PEAR all together and go with the GPL library.

Rob

2009/4/7 Erdősi Gergő <gergo....@gmail.com>

[Ian MacLennan]

I think that depends on our objectives.  Speaking strictly in reference to 1.5, which I assume is what the minimum requirements refers to, we would need to but a wrapper file in the current pear/archive_tar directory so that we can maintain support for this library (i.e. so that if existing extensions try and require_once the archive_tar PHP file it won't bail, and so that they can invoke the Archive_tar class, etc etc - i.e. we would have to have a file there that would match the interface).  I don't know how hard this would be to do, as I haven't looked at the new GPL library that closely, but it may not be as simple as a drop and replace.

Ian

2009/4/8 Rob Schley <rob.s...@community.joomla.org>

[Sam Moffatt]

If I recall the prime reason for Archive_Tar remaining was that it was
used in legacy stuff. It does happen to have a rather kick arse
extraction code as well which is by and far much better than the ugly
Horde stuff we have which we've since found is a tad ordinary when it
comes to following standards anyway.

Sam Moffatt
http://pasamio.id.au



2009/4/9 Ian MacLennan <ianl...@gmail.com>:

[Gergő Erdősi]

PEAR 1.8.1 stable released on 15th April, so I updated the patch in
the tracker (15810-3.patch).

Gergő Erdősi

http://www.joomline.hu - Joomla! fejlesztői oldal

On Apr 7, 4:06 pm, Erdősi Gergő <gergo.erd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks, I'll check it out!
>

> 2009/4/7 Ian MacLennan <ianlen...@gmail.com>:

>
>
>
> > The unit tests are in instance_trunk in the testing branch on Joomlacode.
>
> > Once you follow the unit testing setup instructions (using the
> > instance_trunk branch - I don't know if it works in trunk or not).
>
> > The tests are in the libraries/pear/archive_tar directory.
>
> > Ian
>

> > 2009/4/7 Erdősi Gergő <gergo.erd...@gmail.com>

>
> >> No problem Andrew, I'm sure you instructions were clear, it was just
> >> me who misunderstood them. :) I attached a new patch to the tracker
> >> (15810-2.patch) which updates PEAR and Archive_Tar to the latest
> >> versions:
>

> >>http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/tracker/?action=TrackerItemEd...

>
> >> According to the patch basically it should work, there weren't major
> >> changes. In my early tests it works, but of course it needs a deeper
> >> testing. Ian mentioned that he wrote some unit tests for this, would
> >> be good to run it. (@Ian: Could you please share that unit test with
> >> us?
>

> >> 2009/4/7 Andrew Eddie <mambob...@gmail.com>:

>
> >> > Sorry if my instructions were not as clear as they could have been
> >> > Gergo.
>
> >> > Regards,
> >> > Andrew Eddie

> >> >http://www.theartofjoomla.com- the art of becoming a Joomla developer
>
> >> > 2009/4/6 Erdősi Gergő <gergo.erd...@gmail.com>:

>
> >> >> Ok, thanks for the information! I'm going to start writing the new
> >> >> patch. Once I'm ready, will post an update here.
>
> >> >> Gergő Erdősi
>

> >> >> 2009/4/6 Sam Moffatt <pasa...@gmail.com>:

>
> >> >>> The New/Modified BSD License is compatible with GPL. It's the four
> >> >>> clause one with the ugly advertising clause that is the unapproved
> >> >>> one. This one is fine except it relies on the PHP licensed PEAR
> >> >>> library. All we need to do is basically strip out the PEAR references
> >> >>> from the file and we're done. Oh and kill the PEAR.php file but once
> >> >>> we have no dependencies we should be fine.
>
> >> >>> Sam Moffatt
> >> >>>http://pasamio.id.au
>

> >> >>> 2009/4/6 Erdősi Gergő <gergo.erd...@gmail.com>:

>
> >> >>>> Well, the license of Archive_Tar is 'New BSD License', not GPL and
> >> >>>> I'm
> >> >>>> not sure that it is compatible with the GNU GPL license... I'm going
> >> >>>> to ask Elin about this. If it is compatible, then I misunderstood the
> >> >>>> issue, I thought un-pearing means removing the whole pear library and
> >> >>>> find an alternative. If it's license is compatible and Archive_Tar
> >> >>>> can
> >> >>>> work without PEAR, then I'll create a new patch.
>
> >> >>>> Gergő Erdősi
>

> >> >>>> 2009/4/6 Sam Moffatt <pasa...@gmail.com>:

>
> >> >>>>> I'm confused, the Archive_Tar library was relicensed as GPL all that
> >> >>>>> was needed was to kill the references to PEAR. We can include
> >> >>>>> Archive_Tar no issues but we can't include PEAR because its still
> >> >>>>> under the PHP license. All that was needed was a quick once over the
> >> >>>>> Archive_Tar file to probably remove the PEAR constructor and replace
> >> >>>>> PEAR's error handling with JError/JException.
>
> >> >>>>> Sam Moffatt
> >> >>>>>http://pasamio.id.au
>

> >> >>>>> 2009/4/6 Erdősi Gergő <gergo.erd...@gmail.com>:

> >> >>>>>>http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/tracker/?action=TrackerItemEd...

> >> >>>>http://www.joomline.hu- Joomla! fejlesztői oldal
>
> >> >> --
> >> >> Erdősi Gergő
> >> >>http://www.joomline.hu- Joomla! fejlesztői oldal
>
> >> --
> >> Erdősi Gergő
> >>http://www.joomline.hu- Joomla! fejlesztői oldal
>
> --

[elin]

OK, so to summarize.

1. The rest of PEAR is now using a compatible license.
2. It requires PHP 4.4 which is higher than our minimum.
3. Gergo found a GPL library that works and doesn't have the minimum
problem. That is in patch 1.

Did someone try the unit tests on Gergo's original patch or patch 3?
Gergo can you give the JBS a testing plan please?

Elin

On Apr 19, 2:22 pm, Gergő Erdősi <gergo.erd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> PEAR 1.8.1 stable released on 15th April, so I updated the patch in
> the tracker (15810-3.patch).
>

> Gergő Erdősihttp://www.joomline.hu- Joomla! fejlesztői oldal

>
> On Apr 7, 4:06 pm, Erdősi Gergő <gergo.erd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Thanks, I'll check it out!
>
> > 2009/4/7 Ian MacLennan <ianlen...@gmail.com>:
>
> > > The unit tests are in instance_trunk in the testing branch on Joomlacode.
>
> > > Once you follow the unit testing setup instructions (using the
> > > instance_trunk branch - I don't know if it works in trunk or not).
>
> > > The tests are in the libraries/pear/archive_tar directory.
>
> > > Ian
>
> > > 2009/4/7 Erdősi Gergő <gergo.erd...@gmail.com>
>
> > >> No problem Andrew, I'm sure you instructions were clear, it was just
> > >> me who misunderstood them. :) I attached a new patch to the tracker
> > >> (15810-2.patch) which updates PEAR and Archive_Tar to the latest
> > >> versions:
>
> > >>http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/tracker/?action=TrackerItemEd...
>
> > >> According to the patch basically it should work, there weren't major
> > >> changes. In my early tests it works, but of course it needs a deeper
> > >> testing. Ian mentioned that he wrote some unit tests for this, would
> > >> be good to run it. (@Ian: Could you please share that unit test with
> > >> us?
>
> > >> 2009/4/7 Andrew Eddie <mambob...@gmail.com>:
>
> > >> > Sorry if my instructions were not as clear as they could have been
> > >> > Gergo.
>
> > >> > Regards,
> > >> > Andrew Eddie

> > >> >http://www.theartofjoomla.com-the art of becoming a Joomla developer

> > >> >>>>http://www.joomline.hu-Joomla! fejlesztői oldal
>
> > >> >> --
> > >> >> Erdősi Gergő
> > >> >>http://www.joomline.hu-Joomla! fejlesztői oldal
>
> > >> --
> > >> Erdősi Gergő
> > >>http://www.joomline.hu-Joomla! fejlesztői oldal