Ruby missing directory licensing issues
I've been really enjoying Ruby on Rails recently. So, I wanted to add
the Ruby license to the FSF's license list (the summary is that the
license on its own isn't free, while in disjunction with the GPL, it is,
so Ruby as a whole is OK). But I discovered that the license text
specifically exempted some files in the missing directory. I
investigated, and it turns out that there's only a few files that have
genuine licensing issues. These files may no longer be relevant anyway,
since operating systems are much more complete. I didn't need any of
them to build on Debian. I'm including a list of these files, in the
hope that they can be replaced in the next version of Ruby. I'm not
subscribed to ruby-core, so people from that side who have questions or
comments are requested to CC me.
I'm basing this all on the Debian package of ruby 1.8.2 -- if things
have changed since then, please disregard this message. Also, I haven't
reviewed the rest of Ruby; since it isn't mentioned in the license, I
assume it's all under the Ruby disjunctive license.
These should be replaced or relicensed (organized by license):
"follows Ruby's license" (This is unclear -- does it mean the Ruby
License, or the disjunction? Also, there's no copyright notice):
x68.c
os2.c
Non-free (and incompatible with the GPL) license:
* If you want it, it's yours. All I ask in return is that if you
* figure out how to do this in a Bourne Shell script you send me
* a copy.
mkdir.c
No license at all:
flock.c
fileblocks.c (but no content, so it's OK)
file.h
erf.c (4.4bsd-lite has a version of this)
crypt.c (ditto)
----
This file could use a notice change, because it uses the old BSD
license. UC has given permission to remove the advertising clause, so
this is a very minor issue:
vsnprintf.c
----
The remaining files are OK:
a simple permissive license:
strtoul.c
strtod.c
public domain:
strtol.c
strstr.c
strncasecmp.c
strcasecmp.c
strftime.c
strerror.c
strchr.c
memmove.c
memcmp.c
isnan.c
isinf.c
hypot.c
finite.c
dup2.c
alloca.c
acosh.c
--
-Dave Turner
GPL Compliance Engineer
Support my work: http://svcs.affero.net/rm.php?r=novalis&p=FSF
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