[ruby-talk:12605] Re: Licensing, Intellectual Property, and Ruby code (longish)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Benjamin J. Tilly [mailto:[e-mail]]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2001 9:17 PM
> To: ruby-talk ML
> Subject: [ruby-talk:12595] Re: Licensing, Intellectual Property, and
> Ruby code (longish)
>
> >===== Original Message From Richard Stallman <[e-mail]> =====
> >It is very important to specify a clear license policy for the library
> >of modules, and very important to think carefully about what the
> >policy should be.
>
> In some ways having a clear policy is more important than the
> details of what that policy is.
>
> >It can be advantageous to use a lax license (such as the revised BSD
> >license or the Ruby license) for very basic general facilities, but
> >when it comes to more specific packages, it would be best to use the
> >GPL for them, so as to use their leverage to obtain more free
> >software.  So I would suggest a two-level policy distinguishing
> >between very basic general facilities and other modules.
>
> Best is a normative statement based on a value system.  It
> is absolutely clear that by your value system (which is
> explained very clearly in your writings) whatever policy
> results in promoting free software is best.  However the
> value system of many involved with Ruby may lead to a
> different answer.
>
> I think it is fair to say that most contributers to Ruby at
> this point have met the language, like it, and their primary
> goal is to see the language grow.  For that goal it would be
> best if the standard archive of useful libraries was licensed
> under terms that are usable in a wide range of situations.
>
> Therefore I think it is important that they be usable within
> GPLed software, but I do not think that it is necessary that
> there be undue pressure to go GPL only.  OTOH it may be
> sufficient to require that all software on the RAA be under
> GPL compatible licensing terms.  That is loose enough to be
> usable under a wide range of situations, but it makes the
> rights clear enough that people will be free to cut the
> archive to CD, know that they can always combine components,
> etc.

I have to agree. I'm not trying to start another license debate, and I stand
by anybody's right to put whatever license they wish to on their code; for a
number of reasons including the selfish one that open source of any kind,
even GPL, is better than no source at all. However I think a lot of the time
putting the GPL on a piece of code is equivalent to the 'kiss of death'
w/regards to a good portion of its potential users ever using or (perhaps
even more importantly) contributing to and growing the code. Almost anybody
working in a typical corporate or commercial environment simply can not
touch GPLed code due to its viral nature. I have followed a number of Apache
projects (the Apache license is pretty open, similar to BSD), and
contributed to a smaller extent with comments and patches, and have noticed
that a significant amount of work is done by people in a
commercial/corporate environment. Can a commercial entity benefit unfairly
from free source? Sure, I suppose. Is it still on the other hand in their
best interest to contribute to growing open-source projects they have an
interest in? Absolutely, and at least a certain portion do. Another option
is the middle ground licenses that try to force release of modified code,
but not using code...

As it is, the fact that base Ruby itself has some GPL-only pieces (as far as
I can tell, I am talking about things like getoptlong), are somewhat
worrying. It means that someone can not bundle Ruby in some code that
depends on it, without worrying about license implications. Asking a
neophyte to install Ruby themselves (w/necessary addons) instead of doing an
install for them is not always realistic), never mind the embedding
situation.