Afan Ottenheimer, the original author and copyright holder of PHPlot, made this decision. He wants to avoid the confusion over the current "PHP and GPL" licensing, and has selected LGPL as the single license to use from now on.
Of course, this doesn't restrict you from using PHPlot or redistributing it intact. You are really only limited by the license terms if you plan to include PHPlot with an application, especially a non-free application. This is allowed, but you need to follow the LGPL terms.
Here is what Afan says about the license change, and why he prefers the LGPL over the GPL:
> In a nutshell, the GPL states that if you use it as part of a larger
> program then you have to GPL your entire program. The LGPL states that
> you don't have to GPL your entire program, just the LGPL libraries that
> you use and/or modify.
>
> The goal is that if there is a modification - it would be nice to have
> the modifications flow back to the community as a whole, which is what
> the GPL and LGPL try to enforce. The LGPL is nice, I think, because it
> doesn't force anyone to opensource a larger program and allows the same
> freedom that many other licenses allow, yet still requires improvements
> to the code to flow back to the community.
If anyone has any problems with the license change, please post here. If no objections are heard, and if I don't hear otherwise from Afan, the next release PHPlot-5.0.7 will be licensed under the LGPL.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Future releases of PHPlot will be licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License version 2.1.
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/lgpl-2.1.php
Afan Ottenheimer, the original author and copyright holder of PHPlot, made this decision. He wants to avoid the confusion over the current "PHP and GPL" licensing, and has selected LGPL as the single license to use from now on.
Of course, this doesn't restrict you from using PHPlot or redistributing it intact. You are really only limited by the license terms if you plan to include PHPlot with an application, especially a non-free application. This is allowed, but you need to follow the LGPL terms.
Here is what Afan says about the license change, and why he prefers the LGPL over the GPL:
> In a nutshell, the GPL states that if you use it as part of a larger
> program then you have to GPL your entire program. The LGPL states that
> you don't have to GPL your entire program, just the LGPL libraries that
> you use and/or modify.
>
> The goal is that if there is a modification - it would be nice to have
> the modifications flow back to the community as a whole, which is what
> the GPL and LGPL try to enforce. The LGPL is nice, I think, because it
> doesn't force anyone to opensource a larger program and allows the same
> freedom that many other licenses allow, yet still requires improvements
> to the code to flow back to the community.
If anyone has any problems with the license change, please post here. If no objections are heard, and if I don't hear otherwise from Afan, the next release PHPlot-5.0.7 will be licensed under the LGPL.