I have a few questions regarding the “MIT License” that the Rails
framework uses.
-
The link on the web page (at the bottom of
http://www.rubyonrails.com/)
points to a page (The MIT License – Open Source Initiative)
that has a “generic” license template - i.e., the copyright holder
info reads as follows : “Copyright (c) ”.
Is there an official copy of the license for Rails maintained
somewhere? -
It is not clear to me that derived works (i.e., projects that use,
but aren’t a part of, an unmodified Rails distribution) may be
distributed in a restricted manner - by this I mean, “sold under a
license that restricts the licensee from further distribution of the
derived work”. Can I assume that the phrase, “this software”, as used
in the license, refers to the Rails framework alone, and not to
derivative works building “on top” of the framework? What bothers me
is the condition “The above copyright notice and this permission
notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the
Software.” I have no problem allowing anybody to further distribute
Rails, but I would NOT want them to do likewise with my app. -
Would I need to package and deploy the framework separately from
the app in order to clearly delineate the two? (The intent would be
to separate the two so that they may be distributed under separate
licenses.) -
How have other organizations / developers dealt with licensing and
distribution of Rails apps?
Thanks in advance for any comments and suggestions.
- Mike