[ruby-core:113439] [Ruby master Bug#16820] LEGAL is out of sync

Issue #16820 has been updated by jeremyevans0 (Jeremy Evans).

Status changed from Open to Closed

Ruby does not seem to have any LGPL code anymore.  The IBM code is now documented in LEGAL.  The BSD-2-Clause code is still not documented in LEGAL, but all BSD-2-Clause code seems to also be licensed under Ruby license, so I don't think it is necessary to document in LEGAL.  The benchmark code issues are also now documented in LEGAL.  Since all issues have addressed, I think this can be closed.

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Bug #16820: LEGAL is out of sync
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/16820#change-103011

* Author: shyouhei (Shyouhei Urabe)
* Status: Closed
* Priority: Normal
* Backport: 2.5: UNKNOWN, 2.6: UNKNOWN, 2.7: UNKNOWN
----------------------------------------
At the very beginning of `LEGAL`, it reads:

> All the files in this distribution are covered under either the Ruby's
> license (see the file COPYING) or public-domain except some files
> mentioned below.

This means that the exception list must be comprehensive.  If we miss someone else's software there, it would be automatically made belong to matz.  This is very bad.

However this is happening now.

## Unclear situation for `benchmark` ##

For instance, `benchmark/so_concatenate.rb` comes with no license agreements.  Yet as we read its contents, there is almost no doubt that it is _not_ covered by the Ruby's license.

The problem is that the URL that was once written inside the file is lost.  Our `git log` tells nothing.  This and other files under the directory have permanently lost their origin.

## BSD licensed libraries ##

Take a look at this search result:

```
% git grep -i 'BSD-2-Clause' | wc -l
43
```

None of them are listed in `LEGAL`.

## Programs owned by IBM ##

```
% git grep 'International Business Machines' | wc -l
4
```

The four occurrences of the name IBM does not include `LEGAL`.  Also, I wonder if they are actually compatible with Ruby's license.

## LGPL portions ##

```
% git grep 'the GNU LGPL' | wc -l
11
```

It seems racc is complicated.

- `racc.gemspec` says `s.licenses = ["MIT"]`.
- It however has some files that are LGPL.
- It also has some files that are under Ruby's license.

Which one should we believe?  If we mix all of them, the library as a whole must be under LGPL.  Am I right?



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