# Ruby Distribution

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-distribution/49410>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [December 3, 2005, 10:07pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-distribution/49410 "2005-12-03T22:07:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jfaulkenberry](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/c2a13f/32.png) [@jfaulkenberry](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jfaulkenberry)\
**Post date:** [December 3, 2005, 10:07pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-distribution/49410/1 "2005-12-03T22:07:03Z")

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Hi all,  
I am a C programmer that is beginning to see the network capaibilities  
of Ruby. I am interested in creating a chat application that uses Ruby.  
I am a little confused with the distribution of Ruby, though. Is Ruby  
strictly scripting? Or can I distribute binaries? The time may come when  
I may not want peopel to see my code and simply distribute binaries.  
Also, the user may not have Ruby installed and bundling Ruby with the  
software would bulk it up a lot. If anyone could help me understand how  
Ruby works in terms of distribution/binaries it would be greatly  
appreciated.

Jonathan

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jfaulkenberry](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/c2a13f/32.png) [@jfaulkenberry](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jfaulkenberry)\
**Post date:** [December 3, 2005, 10:14pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-distribution/49410/2 "2005-12-03T22:14:55Z")

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Jonathan Faulkenberry wrote:

> Hi all,  
> I am a C programmer that is beginning to see the network capaibilities  
> of Ruby. I am interested in creating a chat application that uses Ruby.  
> I am a little confused with the distribution of Ruby, though. Is Ruby  
> strictly scripting? Or can I distribute binaries? The time may come when  
> I may not want peopel to see my code and simply distribute binaries.  
> Also, the user may not have Ruby installed and bundling Ruby with the  
> software would bulk it up a lot. If anyone could help me understand how  
> Ruby works in terms of distribution/binaries it would be greatly  
> appreciated.

This topic comes up regularly, so search the archives for more details.

The short answer is that Ruby is text, and the source for a Ruby app may  
be obfuscated, but it is still available for human eyes.

However, Ruby integrates well with C, so you may be able to hide the  
naughty bits by recoding them in C and calling the compiled libs from  
your Ruby code.

Poke around for ruby2c as well.

Also look around for rubyscript2exe for bundling the Ruby interpreter  
with your code.

James

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