PHP Tutorial Update

Hey, I'm new to ELATED, but love the newsletter.

I was reading through the PHP tutorial here: http://www.elated.com/articles/what-is-php/
and came across something that confused me.

If PHP is server side code, and can't be accessed by outside users, then why is the engine open source if it also resides on the web servers? Wouldn't this mean that all the PHP on web servers is essentially open source?

Perhaps some clarification in those paragraphs?

Thanks,

- K

Hi knystrom19, welcome to ELATED!

Thanks for your suggestion. I think there are 2 things to clarify here:

1. The PHP engine is open source, but that doesn't mean that PHP scripts also have to be open source. You can use whatever license you like for your PHP scripts.

2. By "accessible to visitors", I mean that JavaScript code is always visible (just "view source" in your browser), whereas code that runs on the server is not visible/downloadable (unless you choose to explicitly put a zip file of the code on your site for people to download). This is independent of the license used. For example, JavaScript can have a non-open-source license but still be "viewable" to visitors. Similarly, just because a PHP script happens to have an open source license doesn't mean that the script is automatically downloadable from the site that uses it.

Maybe in the article I need to clarify the difference between the PHP engine, and PHP scripts.

Did that make sense?! I have a cold today and my head is fuzzy.

Cheers,
Matt

--
Matt Doyle, Elated
3rd Edition of my jQuery Mobile book out now! Learn to build mobile web apps. Free sample chapter: http://store.elated.com/

It did make sense. Thank you. Although I am unawares as to what a license is...

A software license sets out the conditions under which a user may use, modify, or distribute the software. For example, most open source licenses allow the user to change the software and give away copies to other people, while most proprietary licenses forbid such actions.

For more details see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_license

Hope that helps!

Cheers,
Matt

--
Matt Doyle, Elated
3rd Edition of my jQuery Mobile book out now! Learn to build mobile web apps. Free sample chapter: http://store.elated.com/

Yea, it did. Thanks.