On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 1:10 PM, Kazuhiko Shiozaki<redmine / ruby-lang.org> wrote:

> * change Ruby's license to "(GPL2 or later) or Matz L."
> * change Ruby's license to "(GPL3 or later) or Matz L."
> * change Ruby's license to any GPL compatible license, eg. MIT L., BSD L. etc.
>
> The followings are what Matz said, FYI (translated by me):

Thanks for translating this!

> * http://www.rubyist.net/~matz/20030608.html#p02
>> When I defined Ruby's license, I wanted to permit reuse of a part of codes
>> explicitly. But in reality, BSD license or GPL also fulfills my desire enough
>> (though not so explicitly).
>
> According to his words, I guess that MIT (or BSD) license can be a good choice,
> if we change the license.
>
> And as Shyouhei said, I am afraid that the following can have a license problem.
> $ ruby -r readline -r openssl
> Because ... <snip>

I think this all makes sense.  If you switch to MIT/BSD this problem
goes away, so long as you keep in mind that distributors of Ruby are
still in effect bound by the terms of the GPL.  So you don't gain
anything there and still need to be vigilant about linking...

But this would create (from my limited, non-professional viewpoint) a
consistent and compliant licensing scheme, and except for obscure
cases, probably make Ruby's licensing scheme easier to understand to
its users.

While generally speaking Ruby's licensing scheme I think was clever
(ensuring free software while permitting commercial uses as well),
things have progressed far beyond its humble beginnings.  BSD/MIT
seems to be the way to go given the current ecosystem.

-greg