From: Mark Wilson <mwilson13@...>
Date: 2003-09-05T15:24:37+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby license makes it unuseable ! !

On Friday, September 5, 2003, at 01:12 AM, Default User wrote:

Who are you?

> Is anyone working on either:
>
> 1)  cleaning up the Ruby license, so users at least know CLEARLY what 
> they
> can and can't do with Ruby.

What do you want to do?

>
> (OR)
>
> 2)  re-code the offending parts of the language so ownership and useage
> rights are CLEAR.

Have you looked at the LEGAL and COPYING files included with the Ruby 
distribution? Note that one portion of Ruby is licensed under the LGPL 
(regular expressions), but a separate implementation (called onigurama) 
is being written that will have a different license. All of the other 
portions are licensed under BSD style licenses, Artistic style licenses 
or Weirdo style licenses (like 'beer-ware') that are the functional 
equivalent of an Artistic style license.

> Without clarification, I can't use Ruby.

That's regrettable. If reviewing the license documents is not 
sufficient for you, have you considered hiring a lawyer to review the 
licenses in light of what you want to do? I've read the Python license 
and it does not strike me as being any clearer or more obtuse than the 
Ruby license. If you have a substantial sum of money riding on the 
issue, you should hire a lawyer to review any license for any language 
or software tool.

> What a shame; it would have been a
> great language . . .

It is, of course, a great language.

Regards,

Mark Wilson