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comp.lang.ruby

IronRuby

Lloyd Linklater

9/12/2007 3:15:00 PM

I have heard disturbing things about IronRuby. The short version is
that MS wants to get into the open source arena as that seems to be
their biggest competition, but not in the way that those already there
are. I heard that they want to change the rules for open source to
insinuate themselves everywhere. I read their new version of the open
source agreement that says that if you copy the smallest bit from their
code that you MUST include the entire MS disclaimer and sundry stuff.

Also, I heard that they are going to add windows specific calls so that
the user could "optimize" his program with the "optional" calls. This
is what they did with java and Sun was outraged, sued and won. Now, MS
came out with a more or less windows specific java in the form of C#.

Are they going to do this with ruby? If so, will we be forced to write
windows ruby just to have it cross platform compatible?

Has anyone else been reading these things?
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-....
16 Answers

Phillip Gawlowski

9/12/2007 3:36:00 PM

0



> -----Original Message-----
> From: list-bounce@example.com [mailto:list-bounce@example.com] On
> Behalf Of Lloyd Linklater
> Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 5:15 PM
> To: ruby-talk ML
> Subject: IronRuby
>
> I have heard disturbing things about IronRuby. The short version is
> that MS wants to get into the open source arena as that seems to be
> their biggest competition, but not in the way that those already there
> are. I heard that they want to change the rules for open source to
> insinuate themselves everywhere. I read their new version of the open
> source agreement that says that if you copy the smallest bit from their
> code that you MUST include the entire MS disclaimer and sundry stuff.

The IronRuby license:
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/licensingbasics/permissiveli...

That link can be found on IronRuby's Rubyforge project page (ironruby.rubyforge.org).

In short: No. MS even submitted the Permissive License for review by the OSI (self-appointed watchdog over OSS licenses).

> Also, I heard that they are going to add windows specific calls so that
> the user could "optimize" his program with the "optional" calls. This
> is what they did with java and Sun was outraged, sued and won. Now, MS
> came out with a more or less windows specific java in the form of C#.

Seems somebody misunderstood something a long the line (or listened to FUD spread by Google): IronRuby will do the same thing for .NET as JRuby does for Java: include an interface to the runtime/VM used.

In a sense, you'll be locked into a runtime. But only if you use the code of that runtime.

You can go ahead, and grab IronRuby from Rubyforge and build it yourself, and take a look.

> Are they going to do this with ruby? If so, will we be forced to write
> windows ruby just to have it cross platform compatible?

Huh? Will JRuby and Matz' Ruby suddenly disappear when IronRuby is finalized?

> Has anyone else been reading these things?

Not me.

--
Phillip Gawlowski

Gregory Seidman

9/12/2007 3:41:00 PM

0

On Thu, Sep 13, 2007 at 12:15:19AM +0900, Lloyd Linklater wrote:
> I have heard disturbing things about IronRuby. The short version is
> that MS wants to get into the open source arena as that seems to be
> their biggest competition, but not in the way that those already there
> are. I heard that they want to change the rules for open source to
> insinuate themselves everywhere. I read their new version of the open
> source agreement that says that if you copy the smallest bit from their
> code that you MUST include the entire MS disclaimer and sundry stuff.

Blah blah blah. If you don't like it, don't use it.

> Also, I heard that they are going to add windows specific calls so that
> the user could "optimize" his program with the "optional" calls. This
> is what they did with java and Sun was outraged, sued and won. Now, MS
> came out with a more or less windows specific java in the form of C#.

Oh noes! You mean I might be able to integrate with the entire .NET
platform in which IronRuby runs? I could make calls to various .NET
libraries that aren't available on other (read: non-.NET rather than
non-Windows, given that various .NET VMs/runtimes are available for various
operating systems) platforms? Truly, that would be a tragedy. Oh, yeah,
unless that's what I was trying to do in the first place. And if it isn't,
I don't have to use IronRuby.

> Are they going to do this with ruby? If so, will we be forced to write
> windows ruby just to have it cross platform compatible?

What are you smoking? No one's forcing you to do anything. There are
several implementations of Ruby compilers/VMs/interpreters/runtimes,
including YARV, MRI, Rubinius, Cardinal, JRuby, and IronRuby. Some are more
mature than others. Some perform better than others. Some provide
integration with platform-specific libraries (i.e. JRuby and IronRuby
providing Java and .NET integration, respectively). None of them are
standards-compliant because no standard exists (no, a test suite is not a
standard, and neither is a reference implementation).

> Has anyone else been reading these things?

We've all seen it, but no one is depending on Microsoft's goodwill so no
one is particularly worried.

--Greg

John Joyce

9/12/2007 3:48:00 PM

0


On Sep 12, 2007, at 10:15 AM, Lloyd Linklater wrote:

> I have heard disturbing things about IronRuby. The short version is
> that MS wants to get into the open source arena as that seems to be
> their biggest competition, but not in the way that those already there
> are. I heard that they want to change the rules for open source to
> insinuate themselves everywhere. I read their new version of the open
> source agreement that says that if you copy the smallest bit from
> their
> code that you MUST include the entire MS disclaimer and sundry stuff.
>
> Also, I heard that they are going to add windows specific calls so
> that
> the user could "optimize" his program with the "optional" calls. This
> is what they did with java and Sun was outraged, sued and won.
> Now, MS
> came out with a more or less windows specific java in the form of C#.
>
> Are they going to do this with ruby? If so, will we be forced to
> write
> windows ruby just to have it cross platform compatible?
>
> Has anyone else been reading these things?
> --
> Posted via http://www.ruby-....
>
This is also what they did with C++ in the form of Visual C++
they tried to do it with HTML and Javascript too. Anything they touch
really.
They just try to use it as a business tactic. But every platform has
stuff like that.
You think Silverlight is just out of the goodness of their hearts?
why are you shocked? This has long been one of their strategies.
Sometimes it is simply an engineer introducing legitimate features,
but tech companies have long known that features can also be platform
lock-ins!
If it's a legitimately useful/cool feature, others implement it as
well and it becomes a defacto standard like the xml remote procedure
call that led to AJAX.
The irony is, Microsoft is probably setting themselves up to have
more malware written in more languages that are easier to write code in.

Lloyd Linklater

9/12/2007 4:21:00 PM

0

Phil wrote:
>> I read their new version of the open
>> source agreement that says that if you copy the smallest bit from their
>> code that you MUST include the entire MS disclaimer and sundry stuff.
>
> The IronRuby license:
> http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/licensingbasics/permissiveli...
>
> That link can be found on IronRuby's Rubyforge project page
> (ironruby.rubyforge.org).
>
> In short: No. MS even submitted the Permissive License for review by the
> OSI (self-appointed watchdog over OSS licenses).

In short, yes. From your link and I read and referenced:

3. Conditions and Limitations
(C) If you distribute any portion of the software, you must retain all
copyright, patent, trademark, and attribution notices that are present
in the software.

"ANY portion of the software"
"you must retain ALL..."

Gregory Seidman wrote:
>> Are they going to do this with ruby? If so, will we be forced to write
>> windows ruby just to have it cross platform compatible?
>
> What are you smoking? No one's forcing you to do anything.

I was just asking about things I read. No need to ask what I am
smoking. The things I have been reading seem alarmist and I wanted to
ask in a place where I had hoped I could get a more reasoned and
reasonable response.
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-....

Greg Donald

9/12/2007 5:15:00 PM

0

John Lam (CLR)

9/12/2007 6:57:00 PM

0

> Can someone clarify for me the state of the various Ruby
> implementations under .NET?
> Here are the ones I've heard of.
>
> 1) Gardens Point Ruby.NET from Queensland University of Technology in
> Australia (funded by Microsoft)
> 2) RubyCLR from John Lam
> 3) IronRuby from Microsoft which hired John Lam who now runs the
> project

1) and 3) are both being actively developed. There are folks who have commit privileges to 2), but I don't really have cycles now to contribute to 2) and 3) :(

-John

Ari Brown

9/12/2007 10:32:00 PM

0


On Sep 12, 2007, at 11:15 AM, Lloyd Linklater wrote:

<snip>

I may be bashed as a MS hater.... but long live the penguin.

Apparently, what MS will do is enter a field and provide everything
the competitors provide, except more.

The catch is they insert all sorts of trips, like the software will
only work when applied to .NET productions.
An example is a piece of network software they wrote which would only
talk to Windoze machines.

So.......
I really want to get my hands on that ruby compiler sooooooo baaaaaaaad

~ Ari
English is like a pseudo-random number generator - there are a
bajillion rules to it, but nobody cares.

Michael T. Richter

9/12/2007 11:16:00 PM

0

On Thu, 2007-13-09 at 00:15 +0900, Lloyd Linklater wrote:

> I read their new version of the open
> source agreement that says that if you copy the smallest bit from their
> code that you MUST include the entire MS disclaimer and sundry stuff.


And this is different from the viral portions of the GPL suite how,
precisely? If I make a program with over a million lines of code and
add a hundred lines from a GPLed source, suddenly all of my millions of
lines of code are under the GPL. Or is this different because it's
Microsoft?

--
Michael T. Richter <ttmrichter@gmail.com> (GoogleTalk:
ttmrichter@gmail.com)
I'm not schooled in the science of human factors, but I suspect surprise
is not an element of a robust user interface. (Chip Rosenthal)

Phillip Gawlowski

9/13/2007 1:01:00 AM

0

> From: Michael T. Richter [mailto:ttmrichter@gmail.com]
> Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2007 1:16 AM
> To: ruby-talk ML
> Subject: Re: IronRuby
>
> And this is different from the viral portions of the GPL suite how,
> precisely? If I make a program with over a million lines of code
> and add a hundred lines from a GPLed source, suddenly all of my
> millions of lines of code are under the GPL.
> Or is this different because it's Microsoft?


Actually, the old BSD license with attribution clause is a closer fit. The MS-PL doesn't require you to publish your code with the same license, as the GPL does.

--
Phillip Gawlowski

Michael T. Richter

9/13/2007 2:21:00 AM

0

On Thu, 2007-13-09 at 10:01 +0900, Phil wrote:

> > And this is different from the viral portions of the GPL suite how,
> > precisely? If I make a program with over a million lines of code
> > and add a hundred lines from a GPLed source, suddenly all of my
> > millions of lines of code are under the GPL.
> > Or is this different because it's Microsoft?



> Actually, the old BSD license with attribution clause is a closer fit. The
> MS-PL doesn't require you to publish your code with the same license, as the GPL does.


Well, fair enough. The point I was trying to establish was that it's
not unusual for licenses to say "we encompass any work you do" --
whether the "encompassing" involves attribution (old-style BSD or
current MS-PL) or viral infection (GPL). The secondary point is that
people really need to stop "MS is evil, therefore anything from MS is
evil"-style reasoning. (And I say this as a person who switched
permanently away from MS technologies in 2004.)

--
Michael T. Richter <ttmrichter@gmail.com> (GoogleTalk:
ttmrichter@gmail.com)
Experts in advanced countries underestimate by a factor of two to four
the ability of people in underdeveloped countries to do anything
technical. (Charles P Issawi)