From: Yukihiro Matsumoto <matz@...>
Date: 2008-05-23T07:36:34+09:00
Subject: Re: [URGENT] Who is responsible for Ruby license?

Hi,

In message "Re: [URGENT] Who is responsible for Ruby license?"
    on Fri, 23 May 2008 07:10:46 +0900, "Han, Kimyung" <Kimyung.Han@amd.com> writes:

|We will use the one of the ruby libraries, which allows us to embed a
|ruby interpreter into our source.
|
|We won't changed anything in Ruby. We just want to use one of your
|library and include this library into our solution for redistribution.
|
|Can we have permission from you for this?

Short answer:

it's OK, as long as you mention your users how to get the source code.
But if you want to hide your modified source code, you should handle
it with care.

Long answer:

I'd like Ruby users to follow GPL principle (when you distribute your
modified code, you distribute with your modified source code).  The
purpose of dual license is to ensure users' code do not covered by GPL
automatically, and to allow others to quote my code in their code,
without permission or restriction.

Note that when you distribute modified version of Ruby, without
applying GPL, your version will lose the GPL compatibility, so you
might have non-technical problem to link it with GPL libraries such as
readline.

							matz.