From: Mark Hubbart <discord@...>
Date: 2004-04-28T02:54:08+09:00
Subject: Re: Distributing Ruby DLL


On Apr 27, 2004, at 5:15 AM, Austin Ziegler wrote:

> On Tue, 27 Apr 2004 14:57:41 +0900, James, Roshan (Cognizant) wrote:
>> My understaning of GPL says that GPL code can be freely used anywhere 
>> as
>> long as there is not source level linkage - if you have only some 
>> binary
>> interaction with GPLed code, then the licencsing of the GPL code 
>> cannot
>> affect the rest of you source code. So if it is a DLL, then I think it
>> should be fine.
>>
>> The only thing that can then get in your way is the actual licensing 
>> of
>> binaries in the ruby dist. I belive the ruby license itself is more
>> liberal that the GPL, so you are free to do as you please.
>>
>> Everything above maybe wrong, please read through the license docs
>> yourself, every license that is valid in this context has to be 
>> avilable
>> in the ruby distribution itself, so you wont have to look very far.
>
> Your understanding is essentially correct, with a couple of important
> caveats:
>
> 1. The FSF does not agree.
> 2. US case law appears to mostly agree, but it is not entirely settled.
> 3. Other jurisdictions may deal with this differently.

This whole point is moot.

The regexp library is LGPLed, not GPLed. The LGPL license does not have 
restrictions on linking, so you can distribute it with proprietary 
software if you wish, as long as you tell them where to get the source 
code for the LGPLed library (which is rather simple and shouldn't 
impact your distribution at all).

basically, it turns out that there is nothing to worry about. just 
include a link to ruby's website, and distribute the dll.

--Mark