Ruby.NET and IronRuby are open-sourced 8
As Dr. Nic recently pointed out, the Ruby.NET project is now open source. Ruby.NET was (is?) funded by Microsoft, but later they seem to have taken a different direction with IronRuby, which is also now an open source project.
Of course, IronRuby uses Microsoft's license instead of something most open source developers are familiar with, like the MIT license or one of the other major licenses. MIcrosoft's license is short, easy to read, and makes sense. But I wonder why they couldn't just adopt one of other standard licenses. (Wait, I forgot, we're talking about Microsoft here...) And just because a project is "open source" doesn't mean it's good, and it doesn't mean that MIcrosoft can't have tremendous influence over the IronRuby project.
In fact, I wonder why Microsoft is starting to do more open-source-like things. Is it just an attempt to improve their perception? Or is it a real attempt to embark upon a new direction for a given segment of their development toolset? John Lam has responded often to similar questions posed on Ruby and Rails mailing lists, and I've always been impressed by his candor and his confidence in the direction that his team is heading.
But for me, Microsoft's lack of support for Ruby.NET actually makes it more interesting to follow than the IronRuby project. Even though it now appears obvious IronRuby, and not Ruby.NET, is destined to become the de facto Ruby implementation for Visual Studio and Silverlight. Perhaps if I find some spare cycles (and if I feel like working in .NET again... which is a big question mark), I'll try to lend a hand to the Ruby.NET cause.
If you're a .NET developer with an interest in seeing Ruby flourish on the DLR, then you should step up to the plate and contribute to one or both of these projects.
(If John Lam or Wayne Kelly are reading this, your input and perspective would be welcome.)
Actually we contributed quite a lot of financial and technical support to the Ruby.Net project via Microsoft Research. Ruby.Net uses the IronPython math library, and parts of Ruby.Net live on in IronRuby (most notably the parser).
As you might expect, we diverge in our runtime implementations. IronRuby uses the DLR and Ruby.Net uses their own implementation.
We live in a world that uses both Open Source and closed source proprietary software. It really is an and equation rather than an "either/or" equation. Now not everybody might agree with this sentiment, but such is life.
Hope this helps, -John
The Ruby.Net project is hosted at Google Code and just released 0.9. The code is here: http://code.google.com/p/rubydotnetcompiler/ .
You can find the discussion group/mailing list at: http://groups.google.com/group/RubyDOTNET?hl=en.
@John: Thanks for that explanation. Sounds like one way or the other, Ruby is on track for success in .NET land, which is very good news indeed.
@Ryan: Thanks for the link.
A Microsoft evangelist came to the Ruby.NET meeting (video to be uploaded soonish) and bought us all pizza and drinks, and then more drinks later. I'm so easily bought out.
I think the question is "what do we mean by open source"? Both Ruby.NET and IronRuby make their source available for others to look at and to use in a relatively unrestricted manner.
The difference lies more in the community contribution model(s). Since July of this year, Ruby.NET has moved to a community model where the project is owned, developed and controlled completely by the Ruby and .NET open source communities. Contributors can and are directly contributing to our code base and steering the project.
The "How do I contribute?" section of the IronRuby web sites states only that "We're looking for contributions into the standard libraries ...". Microsoft develops, owns and controls the core of the implementation and contributors cannot directly modify the code base.
Please correct me if this is not the case.
true for now. But it was few times stated that this is for time given, because of DLR is still in heavy development. When DLR stabilizes then it would be possible to contribute also to compiler.
--p.
However, I assert that our ideas have lying before them space, because of our necessary ignorance of the conditions.
Therefore, the objects in space and time (and the reader should be careful to observe that this is the case) are just as necessary as the objects in space and time.