Judging by the GitHub mirror, it looks like Ruby 1.8.x got its license
changed from (Ruby || GPL) to (Ruby || BSDL):
https://github.com/ruby/ruby/blob/trunk/COPYING
It starts with:
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:
It looks like this change was made in September last year. I checked out
the source for the 1.8.7 branch from Subversion using this command, which
I got from the ruby-lang.org site:
svn co http://svn.ruby-lang.org/repos/ruby/branches/ruby_1_8_7
The COPYING file in the checkout still shows the original (Ruby || GPL)
text:
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 GPL version 2 (see the file GPL), or the
conditions below:
It looks like the COPYING file in that repository was last updated in
2007. What's up with the discrepancy? Can I borrow code from MRI Ruby
for a BSD Licensed project of my own, or is the GitHub COPYING file in
error somehow? I hope someone here can enlighten me.
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Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]