Ruby License
| Author | Yukihiro Matsumoto |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Yukihiro Matsumoto, et al. |
| DFSG compatible | Yes |
| FSF approved | Yes |
| OSI approved | No |
| GPL compatible | Yes |
| Copyleft | No |
| Linking from code with a different license | Yes |
The Ruby License is a Free and Open Source 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.
The Ruby license was created on 21 December 1995 with Ruby programming language by Yukihiro Matsumoto. Matsumoto, also known as Matz, born on 14 April 1965. He is a Japanese computer scientist and software programmer from Tottori Prefecture, best known as the chief designer of the Ruby programming language and its reference implementation, Matz's Ruby Interpreter (Ruby MRI).
He was a self-taught programmer until the end of high school. He graduated in computer science at University of Tsukuba, where he joined the research department on programming languages and compilers.
In 2006, Matsumoto was the head of the research and development department at the Network Applied Communication Laboratory, an open source systems integration company in Shimane Prefecture.
For versions up to 1.9.2, the ruby language has been made available under an explicit dual-licence scheme which allowed users to choose between a dedicated Ruby licence or the GNU General Public Licence v2 (GPLV2), which is one of the most common free software licences.
In 2007, GNU General Public Licence v3 (GPLv3) was released. It adds rules on hardware restrictions on software modification and a clause that removes any legal value in Digital rights management, or DRM, technology, allowing end-users to bypass or remove DRM without falling foul of laws like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA.
This restrictions causes that for the language versions since 1.9.2, starting at 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 FreeBSD License, which, by contrast, has been confirmed as both GPL-compliant by the Free Software Foundation and as an official open source licence by the Open Source Initiative, but is far more permissive: unlike the GPL, it does not seek to enforce a 'sharealike' requirement on its licensees.
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