From: ptkwt@... (Phil Tomson) Date: 2004-07-16T02:52:18+09:00 Subject: Re: Problem using Ruby as script language, which limits its distribution speed In article , Christian Kaiser wrote: >I am (or was) a big fan of ruby (except some unexpected function names, but >who cares ). > >Now I need to write a text filter in a commercial application. In the last >one or two years I've become accustomized using Ruby and its advantages, but >now I see that using Ruby in a commercial application is not failsafe legal, >thus I can/may not use it. What do you mean by 'failsafe legal'? > >This means I have to learn another script language, although I don't like >to. > >This also means that I will have to give up Ruby more and more, as I cannot >handle too many languages (Delphi, C/Cpp, Ruby and a new one - it's already >complicated enough). And I guess that happens to other developers as well, >thus effectively keeping the number of Ruby developers less than it could >be. I doubt I'm alone with that problem. > >Is there an official statement on Ruby and commercial usage? I know LICENSE >and it is neither bulletproof (the "exceptions" in the file list, see LEGAL, >give our legal department heartaches) nor does it state clearly whether it's >allowed to use the library (*.DLL in my Windows' case) alone - which in my >case would be sufficient - I don't need to compile any C source code, I just >want to be able to evaluate a .rb script. Depends on what you're using Ruby for in your application. The current regex engine is GPL, however Onigumura (sp?) the new regex engine (I believe it's included in the 1.9.0 source now) is LGPL and so has less restrictions. So you may just have to replace the current regex engine with Onigumura (aka the new regex engine ;-) > >If commercial developers could use it, they would contribute [more], as for >when they need to add functionality, this could/should be published for all >users. Being able to use the language as an extension (like a DLL) will >improve the spreading and usage of Ruby. > >So again: Is there an official statement on Ruby and commercial usage which >a legal department can accept? Yes (well it depends a lot on how you want to use Ruby in your application). In fact at my previous job we used Ruby to script some installation issues on a CD. So we included Ruby on the CD as well as our scripts for doing the install checks. The user ends up running a Ruby script after the CD is inserted in their system (well, it's a lot more convoluted than that, but I don't want to go into all the details) We passed all of this by legal and it was approved. [Just a side note: This CD I refer to is put out by a large microprocessor company (I'm sure you'd recognize the name). It is an evaluation CD of compilers & libraries optimized for their processors. Sometimes these CDs get distributed with Dr. Dobb's Journal and other programming mags. It now has Ruby on it ;-) ] In your case it would seem that you want to use Ruby as a DLL - that's certainly different than the way we were using Ruby. However, I think if you were to replace the current regex engine with the new LGPL'ed regex engine you probably would have no legal difficulties with using Ruby as a DLL or shared library. Phil