From: Chris Gehlker Date: 2002-10-10T04:44:58+09:00 Subject: License Question I'm working on a project with the working title of "Ruby Automation Language" (Ruby AL). It's a component for Script Editor and friends on Jaguar that implements 'watch me' automation. That is, the user can open the Editor and a target application, click the record button, start working in the target application, and Ruby AL generates Ruby code to repeat her actions. It's a way to quickly script workflow in Ruby. I want to release this under the Academic Free License Version 1.1. http://www.opensource.org/licenses/academic.php I am given to understand that the AFL is not compatible with the current version of the GPL though it may be compatible with the next version. It does seem compatible with Ruby's own license but IANAL. My problem is that when I went to the FSF site for guidance, I found this: "What constitutes combining two parts into one program? This is a legal question, which ultimately judges will decide. We believe that a proper criterion depends both on the mechanism of communication (exec, pipes, rpc, function calls within a shared address space, etc.) and the semantics of the communication (what kinds of information are interchanged). "If the modules are included in the same executable file, they are definitely combined in one program. If modules are designed to run linked together in a shared address space, that almost surely means combining them into one program. "By contrast, pipes, sockets and command-line arguments are communication mechanisms normally used between two separate programs. So when they are used for communication, the modules normally are separate programs. But if the semantics of the communication are intimate enough, exchanging complex internal data structures, that too could be a basis to consider the two parts as combined into a larger program." This seems to be saying both "yes" and "no" to me because, in run mode, Ruby AL just opens a pipe to Ruby sends it the script. That's the point. Ruby AL is just a front end to *real* Ruby. I'm asking Matz, as the copyright holder of Ruby, to give me a legal OK. I'd like the Ruby community to comment on the ethics. This would make Ruby a fairly intimate part of some very non-free software but it seems to me that WIN32OLE has already been down that road. -- As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life - so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls. -Matt Cartmill, anthropology professor and author (1943- )