From: Austin Ziegler <austin@...>
Date: 2002-09-09T14:46:46+09:00
Subject: Re: JRuby (was Re: OS-independent build of ruby)

On Mon, 9 Sep 2002 01:49:16 +0900, Jan Arne Petersen wrote:
> On Sun, 08 Sep 2002 02:36:35 +0000, Austin Ziegler wrote:
>> I realise that this person may be perfectly legitimate to do this
>> (although 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.
> 1) It isn't a question of your opinion but a question of the
> license. I will discuss this topic only with the copyright holders
> of the original ruby because in my opinion copyright violation is
> a very hard accusation.

You're right. It's not a question of my opinion -- it's a question
of the opinions of the copyright holders on Ruby and all of the
modifications to Ruby up until the point from which you diverged
from the existing source.

However, as someone who uses Ruby and might consider JRuby, it does
matter to me. As such, it's definitely my right and responsibility
to comment. It's also my right and responsibility to raise this
issue in a forum where the original copyright holders -- who appear
not to have been consulted about the choice of only one of the two
available licences -- can be notified.

> 2) Main contributors of JRuby don't want to license JRuby under
> the Ruby license. If we really have to use also the Ruby license
> we could throw away the whole existing JRuby code and restart from
> nothing. But it should be clear that I wouldn't do this work
> again.

I think, then, that there's a problem. My understanding is that when
a program is dual-licensed, you have the option of accepting it
under either of the licences available. However, modified versions
*must* be released under both (or all) existing licences. I've put
this question to Lawrence Rosen (lrosen@rosenlaw.com) who writes for
one of LJ or LM. I haven't given details except the fact that the
original project is under GNU GPL and/or artistic-style and the
forked project is only available under GNU GPL.

I could be wrong. But even if I *am* legally wrong in my
interpretation, it seems to go against the spirit of dually licenced
software to do what you've done, which is to choose the worse of the
two licences that Ruby has available.

I am curious, though: why didn't the main contributors want to use
Ruby's licences (both of them)?

> 3) We are working hard to release JRuby also under the LGPL. I
> spend a lot of time to create JRuby and I never get any money for
> this work neither direct nor indirect. It is very depressing to be
> confronted with your reproachs.

I'm not giving reproach. I'm raising questions. I think your effort
is likely to be a good thing, but I think that your licencing
choices may have been misguided. As I said in response to Anders, I
think that LGPL + GPL is *better*, especially because of the
problems that the GPL has with dynamic languages, but I still don't
necessarily think that it's "right".

> If you want to use JRuby under another license you can contact us
> (with an adequate email) but if you don't like the JRuby project
> and want to stop it you are on the right way.

I'm not interested in stopping the JRuby project. IMO, if it were
licensed properly, it could make a good basis for a Ruby.NET. I'm
just disappointed that people who obviously like a language and it's
implementation enough to reuse it don't choose the whole of the
licensing conditions under which it is available.

-austin
-- Austin Ziegler, austin@halostatue.ca on 2002.09.09 at 01.27.50