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Ruby License

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Gsnxn (talk | contribs) at 00:20, 18 April 2016 (Remove now-incorrect clause about proprietary distribution. BSD license option allows this.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Ruby License
AuthorYukihiro Matsumoto
PublisherYukihiro Matsumoto, et al.
SPDX identifierRuby
Debian FSG compatibleYes[1]
FSF approvedYes[2]
OSI approvedNo
GPL compatibleYes[2]
CopyleftLimited
Linking from code with a different licenceYes

The Ruby License is a license applied to the Ruby programming language and also available to be used in other projects. It is approved by the Free Software Foundation although it has not been reviewed (approved Open Source) by the Open Source Initiative.

Terms

The Ruby License has unusual copyleft requirements, stating that redistributions should not necessarily be under the terms of the Ruby license, but placed "in the Public Domain or otherwise ... Freely Available". For example, a modified form of a program licensed under the Ruby license may be placed under the GNU General Public License or Common Development and Distribution License, which, while still free software licenses, are incompatible with each other.

Dual licensing

For Ruby versions up to 1.9.2, it included an explicit dual-licensing clause that allowed covered software to be distributed under the terms of the GPL instead of those of the Ruby License itself. For versions since 1.9.2, starting with 1.9.3, the reference implementation of Ruby has used a version of the Ruby License that includes an explicit dual-licensing clause that allows covered software to be distributed under the terms of the Simplified BSD License instead.

The Free Software Foundation comments: "This is a free software licence, compatible with the GPL via an explicit dual-licensing clause."[2]

References

  1. ^ "Debian - License information". Debian Foundation. Archived from the original on 2013-04-01. Retrieved 2013-11-09.
  2. ^ a b c https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html#Ruby