From: Phil <cmdjackryan@...>
Date: 2007-09-13T00:36:05+09:00
Subject: Re: IronRuby



> -----Original Message-----
> From: list-bounce@example.com [mailto:list-bounce@example.com] On
> Behalf Of Lloyd Linklater
> Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 5:15 PM
> To: ruby-talk ML
> Subject: IronRuby
> 
> I have heard disturbing things about IronRuby.  The short version is
> that MS wants to get into the open source arena as that seems to be
> their biggest competition, but not in the way that those already there
> are.  I heard that they want to change the rules for open source to
> insinuate themselves everywhere.  I read their new version of the open
> source agreement that says that if you copy the smallest bit from their
> code that you MUST include the entire MS disclaimer and sundry stuff.

The IronRuby license:
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/licensingbasics/permissivelicense.mspx

That link can be found on IronRuby's Rubyforge project page (ironruby.rubyforge.org).

In short: No. MS even submitted the Permissive License for review by the OSI (self-appointed watchdog over OSS licenses).

> Also, I heard that they are going to add windows specific calls so that
> the user could "optimize" his program with the "optional" calls.  This
> is what they did with java and Sun was outraged, sued and won.  Now, MS
> came out with a more or less windows specific java in the form of C#.

Seems somebody misunderstood something a long the line (or listened to FUD spread by Google): IronRuby will do the same thing for .NET as JRuby does for Java: include an interface to the runtime/VM used.

In a sense, you'll be locked into a runtime. But only if you use the code of that runtime.

You can go ahead, and grab IronRuby from Rubyforge and build it yourself, and take a look.

> Are they going to do this with ruby?  If so, will we be forced to write
> windows ruby just to have it cross platform compatible?

Huh? Will JRuby and Matz' Ruby suddenly disappear when IronRuby is finalized?

> Has anyone else been reading these things?

Not me.

--
Phillip Gawlowski