Hi all, I would like to build a MacRuby app to sell on the Mac App Store. However, I am concerned about the GPL license on some of the MacRuby source code, given what happened to VLC on the iOS App Store. I have googled around and the only discussion I could find on this topic was a brief page at Stack Exchange, which did not have a conclusive answer. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7028270/license-of-macruby Reading LEGAL in the MacRuby distribution is confusing. It would seem that all the listed licenses apply if these files are all compiled into MacRuby. One of the files is GPL, therefore the whole app would have to be GPL, correct? I know that others are currently selling MacRuby apps in the Mac App Store, but I would like to know more about this issue before I spend time building my app in MacRuby. Many thanks, Mike Boone. http://boonedocks.net/mike/
I'm not a lawyer so I can't answer your question on any legal basis, but the goal of the project isn't to corner anyone in a given license. If you were to find any issues, I am sure the entire team would do everything in its power to help. - Matt On Fri, Oct 7, 2011 at 1:17 AM, Mike Boone <mike@boonedocks.net> wrote:
Hi all,
I would like to build a MacRuby app to sell on the Mac App Store. However, I am concerned about the GPL license on some of the MacRuby source code, given what happened to VLC on the iOS App Store.
I have googled around and the only discussion I could find on this topic was a brief page at Stack Exchange, which did not have a conclusive answer.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7028270/license-of-macruby
Reading LEGAL in the MacRuby distribution is confusing. It would seem that all the listed licenses apply if these files are all compiled into MacRuby. One of the files is GPL, therefore the whole app would have to be GPL, correct?
I know that others are currently selling MacRuby apps in the Mac App Store, but I would like to know more about this issue before I spend time building my app in MacRuby.
Many thanks, Mike Boone. http://boonedocks.net/mike/ _______________________________________________ MacRuby-devel mailing list MacRuby-devel@lists.macosforge.org http://lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/macruby-devel
Hi Mike, I am also not a lawyer, but it is worth noting that the Ruby license is a dual license, with one part being the GPL and the other being a slightly relaxed version of the BSD 2-clause license. That said, there are a few libraries which can be *optionally* compiled in with Ruby (e.g. readline) which *are* GPL'd, but if you have a vanilla build/install of MacRuby, these also shouldn't be a concern. It is also worth noting that there are already a number of MacRuby apps in the Mac OS app store. Cheers, Josh On Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 9:17 PM, Mike Boone wrote:
Hi all,
I would like to build a MacRuby app to sell on the Mac App Store. However, I am concerned about the GPL license on some of the MacRuby source code, given what happened to VLC on the iOS App Store.
I have googled around and the only discussion I could find on this topic was a brief page at Stack Exchange, which did not have a conclusive answer.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7028270/license-of-macruby
Reading LEGAL in the MacRuby distribution is confusing. It would seem that all the listed licenses apply if these files are all compiled into MacRuby. One of the files is GPL, therefore the whole app would have to be GPL, correct?
I know that others are currently selling MacRuby apps in the Mac App Store, but I would like to know more about this issue before I spend time building my app in MacRuby.
Many thanks, Mike Boone. http://boonedocks.net/mike/ _______________________________________________ MacRuby-devel mailing list MacRuby-devel@lists.macosforge.org (mailto:MacRuby-devel@lists.macosforge.org) http://lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/macruby-devel
Matt & Josh, thanks for your replies. I'm also not a lawyer. I like Ruby and would love to see it flourish on the Mac (and hopefully iOS one day). It would be nice if the license implications were clearer to developers. I'm not experienced with Ruby's source code. The only files which mention the GPL in LEGAL are parse.c and util.c. Is the "vanilla" MacRuby using those? If not, it seems there is no issue, but perhaps the documentation should reflect this. Thanks, Mike. On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 9:57 PM, Joshua Ballanco <jballanc@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Mike, I am also not a lawyer, but it is worth noting that the Ruby license is a dual license, with one part being the GPL and the other being a slightly relaxed version of the BSD 2-clause license. That said, there are a few libraries which can be *optionally* compiled in with Ruby (e.g. readline) which *are* GPL'd, but if you have a vanilla build/install of MacRuby, these also shouldn't be a concern. It is also worth noting that there are already a number of MacRuby apps in the Mac OS app store. Cheers, Josh
On Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 10:03 PM, Mike Boone wrote:
I'm not experienced with Ruby's source code. The only files which mention the GPL in LEGAL are parse.c and util.c. Is the "vanilla" MacRuby using those? If not, it seems there is no issue, but perhaps the documentation should reflect this. If you look closely at the license text in parse.c there is a special exception for programs that are not parser generators, which would cover the use of parse.c in Ruby. As for util.c, the only section of the code mentioning the GPL is surrounded with pre-processor directives that only include the code in question on Windows builds (and, so far as I am aware, no one has compiled MacRuby on Windows yet).
As for clarification, I think project documentation is not really the place for legal advice. If you want, you can go to the FSF (http://www.fsf.org/ -- which has already approved the Ruby license as a "free software license" and compatible with the GPL) or the OSI (http://opensource.org/ -- who have not, yet, issued an opinion on the Ruby license) for more guidance. If you need more assistance understanding the licensing issues than these organizations can provide, or if you feel that there is a significant risk to your business or livelihood, I would recommend contacting an IP lawyer for further advice. - Josh
On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 10:29 PM, Joshua Ballanco <jballanc@gmail.com> wrote:
If you look closely at the license text in parse.c there is a special exception for programs that are not parser generators, which would cover the use of parse.c in Ruby. As for util.c, the only section of the code mentioning the GPL is surrounded with pre-processor directives that only include the code in question on Windows builds (and, so far as I am aware, no one has compiled MacRuby on Windows yet).
This is what I was trying to understand. Perhaps putting something like this in a note in the License folder is overkill, but it's nice to have it mentioned somewhere, even if it's just this discussion in the mailing list. I don't consider it legal advice, just additional detail about how the source code is used. I just want to interpret the licenses as best I can before I spend time writing code. You have helped me to understand it better. Thanks, Mike.
As for util.c, the only section of the code mentioning the GPL is surrounded with pre-processor directives that only include the code in question on Windows builds (and, so far as I am aware, no one has compiled MacRuby on Windows yet).
And when it's mentioned it's not just the GPL but a dual GPL/Artistic License license anyway.
participants (4)
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Joshua Ballanco
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Matt Aimonetti
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Mike Boone
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Vincent Isambart