# Why ruby license? **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [April 9, 2009, 9:46am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/why-ruby-license/165113 "2009-04-09T09:46:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![kallep](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/e68b1a/32.png) [@kallep](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kallep)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2009, 9:46am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/why-ruby-license/165113/1 "2009-04-09T09:46:00Z")
All these different licenses makes me confused. As I been understand it you may choose a GPL license or Ruby’s own license. The GPL license is not compatible with, for example, the MTT license which Rail is released with, and I do not want to use the GPL license for my project either. My questions is: 1. Why has Ruby its own license and are not licensed under something like the Apache license? 2. Why is Ruby not dual license with the Apache license, rather then the GPL? which I understand is more closer to the ruby license and not as restrictive as the GPL license? Sorry for my poor English ---
**Author:** ![kallep](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/e68b1a/32.png) [@kallep](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kallep)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2009, 3:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/why-ruby-license/165113/2 "2009-04-09T15:39:21Z")
On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 2:46 AM, Johan G. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > 1. Why  has Ruby  its own license and are not licensed under something > like the Apache license? I hate to answer so flippantly, but, because. It’s the same reason that we have BSD and MIT licenses. At the heart of them, they are almost the same (nobody kill me for generalizing 🙂 but they feel different, have a different flavor to them. It’s a matter more of tastes than anything else. Is it to you’re liking that your name is always attached, that people can easily use it along side commercial or non commercial code, do you want to make it easy or difficult to be bundled? Unless you’re really sure of the future of your project, it doesn’t really matter. Pretty much all of the “open source” licenses are compatible at some level. You can move a project from one license to another, even to a proprietary one. Which license depends on how hard it is, but I think it’s always possible. This page may help you: > **[Comparison of free and open-source software licenses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_free_software_licences)** > > This comparison only covers software licenses which have a linked Wikipedia article for details and which are approved by at least one of the following expert groups: the Free Software Foundation, the Open Source Initiative, the Debian Project and the Fedora Project. For a list of licenses not specifically intended for software, see List of free-content licences. > FOSS stands for "Free and Open Source Software". There is no one universally agreed-upon definition of FOSS software and various grou... –Kyle ---
**Author:** ![kallep](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/e68b1a/32.png) [@kallep](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kallep)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 10:46am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/why-ruby-license/165113/3 "2009-04-10T10:46:14Z")
Hi, In message “Re: Why ruby license?” on Thu, 9 Apr 2009 16:46:07 +0900, Johan G. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) writes: |1. Why has Ruby its own license and are not licensed under something |like the Apache license? Just because Ruby is older than Apache. |2. Why is Ruby not dual license with the Apache license, rather then the |GPL? which I understand is more closer to the ruby license and not as |restrictive as the GPL license? It needs GPL dual to accomplish GPL compatibility. I don’t want to see any problem linking with GPL libraries, e.g. readline. ``` matz. ``` ---
**Author:** ![kallep](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/e68b1a/32.png) [@kallep](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kallep)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 1:10pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/why-ruby-license/165113/4 "2009-04-10T13:10:22Z")
Yukihiro M. wrote: > |Why is Ruby not dual license with the Apache license, rather then the > |GPL? which I understand is more closer to the ruby license and not as > |restrictive as the GPL license? > > It needs GPL dual to accomplish GPL compatibility. I don’t want to > see any problem linking with GPL libraries, e.g. readline. Thank you. This kind of licensing makes it a lot easier to justify GPL development at commercial software development companies.