[PHP-DEV] Commercial Extensions

[Blake Schwendiman]

Has there been any discussion of how a company should provide extensions to
PHP if the company prefers not to release their source code? I have had a
few discussions recently with some companies who have Java and COM versions
of their products available for JSP and ASP web developers. Many people in
these companies are interested in the PHP developer market, but are unsure
how to do so.

I realize that PHP supports both COM and Java, but there is an interest in
providing native C/C++ and PHP support. What options does such a company
have?

Sincerely,
Blake Schwendiman
Intechra LLC

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[Zeev Suraski]

At 19:37 07-11-00, Blake Schwendiman wrote:
>Has there been any discussion of how a company should provide extensions to
>PHP if the company prefers not to release their source code? I have had a
>few discussions recently with some companies who have Java and COM versions
>of their products available for JSP and ASP web developers. Many people in
>these companies are interested in the PHP developer market, but are unsure
>how to do so.
>
>I realize that PHP supports both COM and Java, but there is an interest in
>providing native C/C++ and PHP support. What options does such a company
>have?

Nothing in the PHP license prevents you from creating a closed-source,
proprietary module. Nothing stops you from selling it either.

Zeev

--
Zeev Suraski <ze...@zend.com>
+972-3-6139665, ext 105
http://www.zend.com/

[Rasmus Lerdorf]

PHP support dynamically loading extensions. Most of the extensions
bundled with PHP can be compiled as a shared extension. ie. ./configure
--with-mysql=shared would create a mysql.so file that can then be loaded
from a PHP script by using dl('mysql.so') or you can preload it by adding
the line: "extension=mysql.so" to you php.ini file.

Now, to ship a commercial extension for PHP, simply ship a shared library.
Developing one of these has gotten much easier. Read the README.EXT_SKEL
in the PHP distribution tarball and follow the instructions there.

But, for the record, I believe you are better off shipping source and if
you wish to somehow restrict users do so using a license which spells out
the rights your customers are buying. This also allows you to support an
infinite number of different platforms instead of requiring that you build
your shared library on a hundred different types of systems. And you are
going to have help debugging problems, enhancing your product, etc...

-Rasmus

On Tue, 7 Nov 2000, Blake Schwendiman wrote:

> Has there been any discussion of how a company should provide extensions to
> PHP if the company prefers not to release their source code? I have had a
> few discussions recently with some companies who have Java and COM versions
> of their products available for JSP and ASP web developers. Many people in
> these companies are interested in the PHP developer market, but are unsure
> how to do so.
>
> I realize that PHP supports both COM and Java, but there is an interest in
> providing native C/C++ and PHP support. What options does such a company
> have?
>

> Sincerely,
> Blake Schwendiman
> Intechra LLC
>
>