Phil Tomson wrote:
> It would be great if Ruby could play in this space and since
> Ruby is easy to embed and arguably a better language (OK, that's a
> subjective statement, but I have had some experience with TCL :) it could
> potentially be a player.

No, it's not subjective if you mean as a language.  For ease of
embedding it probably has an edge, but a more powerful alternative might
be a scheme dialect, or better yet librep.  Of course, Tcl might be
easier for the target audience.  Tcl is just fun to learn because it's
based on such a simple and all-encompassing concept-- the string-- and
it's so small it doesn't take long.  There are also side benefits, like
getting a feel for Tk in its native environment, comes in useful for
Ruby where there isn't much Tk documentation in English, and tclsh,
which provides a nice alternative for what are traditionally shell
scripts, having more of a lightweight, integrated feel than Perl or
Ruby.

> So, the question is: Would Ruby's current license (a modified GPL) allow
> it to be embedded in a commercial application without, to quote those who
> are against GPL <paranoia voice>"spreading the GPL 'virus' to the rest of
> the code"?</paranoia voice> I suspect it would be possible: If the Ruby
> portion was a seperate dll or shared library I think there should be no
> worries about the rest of the commercial code becoming 'GPL'.
> 
> Any other opinions about this?
> 
> Phil

-- 
Alexander Schofield