license check: ruby 1.9.3
(Please keep debian-ruby@ Cced)
Hi,
In the upcoming Ruby release, there will be a license change from
GPLv2||Ruby to BSD||Ruby. Since the situation is rather complex, and
involves linking with both readline and openssl, I'd like to check that
our interpretation is correct.
1. Relevant copyright and licensing information
===============================================
In short, Ruby is dual-licensed under the Ruby license (which is probably free)
and a 2-clause BSD license.
<COPYING (in the ruby source)>
Ruby is copyrighted free software by Yukihiro Matsumoto <matz@netlab.jp>.
You can redistribute it and/or modify it under either the terms of the
2-clause BSDL (see the file BSDL), or the conditions below:
1. You may make and give away verbatim copies of the source form of the
software without restriction, provided that you duplicate all of the
original copyright notices and associated disclaimers.
2. You may modify your copy of the software in any way, provided that
you do at least ONE of the following:
a) place your modifications in the Public Domain or otherwise
make them Freely Available, such as by posting said
modifications to Usenet or an equivalent medium, or by allowing
the author to include your modifications in the software.
b) use the modified software only within your corporation or
organization.
c) give non-standard binaries non-standard names, with
instructions on where to get the original software distribution.
d) make other distribution arrangements with the author.
3. You may distribute the software in object code or binary form,
provided that you do at least ONE of the following:
a) distribute the binaries and library files of the software,
together with instructions (in the manual page or equivalent)
on where to get the original distribution.
b) accompany the distribution with the machine-readable source of
the software.
c) give non-standard binaries non-standard names, with
instructions on where to get the original software distribution.
d) make other distribution arrangements with the author.
4. You may modify and include the part of the software into any other
software (possibly commercial). But some files in the distribution
are not written by the author, so that they are not under these terms.
For the list of those files and their copying conditions, see the
file LEGAL.
5. The scripts and library files supplied as input to or produced as
output from the software do not automatically fall under the
copyright of the software, but belong to whomever generated them,
and may be sold commercially, and may be aggregated with this
software.
6. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE.
</COPYING>
<BSDL (in the ruby source)>
Copyright (C) 1993-2010 Yukihiro Matsumoto. All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
are met:
1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
SUCH DAMAGE.
</BSDL>
2. Ruby build process and generated files / packages
====================================================
The ruby build process generates several shared libraries.
The main one (libruby-1.9.1.so.1.9) and a lot of secondary ones are not linked
against anything special, so I expect that the above licensing conditions can
fully apply.
Here are the other cases:
Cases that don't raise any questions:
-------------------------------------
/usr/lib/ruby/1.9.1/x86_64-linux/psych.so - linked with libyaml
=> very liberal PD-like license, not a problem
/usr/lib/ruby/1.9.1/x86_64-linux/curses.so - linked with ncurses and ncursesw
=> BSD with 3 clauses, not a problem
/usr/lib/ruby/1.9.1/x86_64-linux/digest/sha2.so - linked with libcrypto
=> BSD-like, OK
/usr/lib/ruby/1.9.1/x86_64-linux/zlib.so - linked with zlib
=> OK
GPL libraries:
--------------
/usr/lib/ruby/1.9.1/x86_64-linux/dbm.so - linked with libgdbm and gdbm_compat
/usr/lib/ruby/1.9.1/x86_64-linux/gdbm.so - linked with libgdbm
=> GPLv2+
/usr/lib/ruby/1.9.1/x86_64-linux/readline.so - currently linked with libreadline5, but we could move to libreadline6
=> GPLv2+ (for readline5), GPLv3 (for readline6)
/usr/lib/ruby/1.9.1/x86_64-linux/fiddle.so - linked with libffi
=> GPLv2+
OpenSSL:
--------
/usr/lib/ruby/1.9.1/x86_64-linux/openssl.so - linked with openssl
=> OpenSSL license
All files are currently shipped in the same binary package.
Questions
=========
1. Are we really allowed to ship all those files in the same binary package?
2. Can a non-GPL Ruby application load one of the Ruby extensions linked with a
GPL libraries? (I'm not sure if there's jurisprudence on this from other
scripting languages)
3. Can a Ruby application load both the openssl extension, and one of the GPL
extensions (e.g readline)?
By "loading" an extension, I mean code in one of the ruby scripts such
as "require 'readline'".
Thanks
- Lucas
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