From: Austin Ziegler <austin@...>
Date: 2002-09-08T12:02:39+09:00
Subject: Re: JRuby (was Re: OS-independent build of ruby)

On Sun, 8 Sep 2002 11:52:15 +0900, Christian Szegedy wrote:
> Austin Ziegler wrote:
> 
>> I'm not super sure; it's likely based on the existing source and
>> claims to be 1.6.7 compatible for most purposes), but it's still
>> nasty, IMO, not to do it under the same licence as the base
>> implementation.
> 
> It is as nasty as releasing gcc under GPL :)

Well, no, because gcc explicitly states that output is simply that,
and isn't covered. It's more like releasing "bison" under the GPL.
The difference, of course, is that because Java is a relatively
dynamic language, you may have a GPL-conflict without even knowing
it. In theory, you could use JRuby to script JavaBeans; however, if
those Beans are under a non-GPL-friendly licence, and you may not
know it if it's something sent to you by an application server, then
you have violated the GPL. Further, JRuby is intended to be embedded
in Java applications, which means that they must be GPLed or able to
be taken over by the GPL.

> Anyhow: it is much less nastier than releasing closed source...:)

Only to a very small point it is. The GPL is the worst of the truly
open licences out there, IMO. I'm the anti-Stallman in many ways;
while he recommends the GPL for everything even over the LGPL, I
recommend the LGPL or an equivalent (MPL or Perl|Ruby Artistic, for
example) for everything even over the GPL.

The best licence that the FSF came up with was the LGPL; the worst
was the GPL.

-austin
-- Austin Ziegler, austin@halostatue.ca on 2002.09.07 at 22.57.11