GUI With Ruby

[Lyle Johnson]

Is anyone able to give a quick rundown on which of these toolkits
will work on both Windows and OS X?

FOX works on both Windows and OS X, but the OS X version runs under
the X server (i.e. it doesn't use Carbon APIs directly).

 

[Lyle Johnson]

[For Qt] your mileage may vary and licensing is not free.

Aren't the licensing fees for Qt waived if you're using it for
non-commercial, open source software (or something like that)? It
seems like it used to be the case that you only had to pay the
licensing fees if you were using Qt for commercial development.

 

[Lyle Johnson]

Agreed. FX and FXRuby are indeed great GUI toolkits (this coming
from a Qt guy). I simply started using Qt LONG before I ever picked
up Ruby, so QtRuby was a natural marriage for me.

Sending the love for Qt back your way.

All of the "major" GUI toolkits for Ruby are pretty good. They all
have their little quirks, etc. My usual recommendation to folks is to
try out several of them on a little test program and see how it feels.
You also want to consider things like what kinds of documentation
(free or otherwise) and technical support (via forums, IRC, mailing
lists, etc.) is available for those times when you do run into
problems. There's more to a choice like this than merely looking at a
feature list and flipping a coin.

 

[Sebastian Hungerecker]

I would like some
kind of GUI environment in which I can just grab a widget (i.e. a
drop-down-list or a radio button, Etc.) and drop it exactly where I want it
to be. [...]
But, I've been waiting now for a few years and nothing yet! And I don't
have the skills to write it myself. Oh Well, the story of my life!

Don't the qt designer (fot qt) and glade (for gtk) do what you want?

 

[John Joyce]

There is an Education License allowed on faith, but you do have to
wonder if lawyers won't come knocking some day.
It is just something to be aware of. You do need to read that stuff
if you use it and put it into use.

[For Qt] your mileage may vary and licensing is not free.

Aren't the licensing fees for Qt waived if you're using it for
non-commercial, open source software (or something like that)? It
seems like it used to be the case that you only had to pay the
licensing fees if you were using Qt for commercial development.

 

[Lyle Johnson]

There is an Education License allowed on faith, but you do have to
wonder if lawyers won't come knocking some day.
It is just something to be aware of. You do need to read that stuff
if you use it and put it into use.

Oh, sure, I definitely agree that people need to understanding the
licensing terms for the software that they're considering using.

 

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

Actually, Qt has gotten a lot better, and does work on Windows and OS
X and linux with claimed native look and feel.
Your mileage may vary and licensing is not free.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding about the Qt license is this -- when you start a project, you decide which license it will use -- commercial or open source -- and the project is forever licensed that way. Say you pick open source. You download the open source version, incorporate it into your project, and you can never convert the project to a commercial one at that point.

Similarly, if you start a commercial project, buy the commercial version of Qt, etc., you can never convert the project to open source. I'm not sure how this fits with the Ruby license.

My own personal opinion is that most "open source" licenses are junk, with the GPL being one of the worst. I think it's high time someone came up with an open source license that says something like this:

"This software is copyright 2007 M. Edward Borasky. Here is the source. You can do anything you want with it, but if you hurt someone with it, it's your fault and not mine. If you make any money with it, it's your money and not mine. If you do something with it that makes you famous, it's your fame and not mine. And I can't prevent you from compiling it and distributing the binaries without distributing the source, so you can do that too."

 

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

I'm using Qt4 QtRuby on the Mac and Linux wonderfully. I've started
diving into an attempt to build it on Windows, but honestly, using
Windows for software development is very frustrating for me. However,
it certainly is feasible to build and once someone does and they share
their library or routine for building it, we can safely say it's
supported there as well.

Caleb

Oops ... it *doesn't* work on Windows? I lied! Bad me! Well, there's
always Cygwin ... <ducking>

 

[Brian Candler]

My own personal opinion is that most "open source" licenses are junk, with
the GPL being one of the worst. I think it's high time someone came up with
an open source license that says something like this:

"This software is copyright 2007 M. Edward Borasky. Here is the source. You
can do anything you want with it, but if you hurt someone with it, it's
your fault and not mine. If you make any money with it, it's your money and
not mine. If you do something with it that makes you famous, it's your fame
and not mine. And I can't prevent you from compiling it and distributing
the binaries without distributing the source, so you can do that too."

That's called the BSD licence.

 

[Timothy Hunter]

Um, how close is the BSD license to this "my code, don't need to quote
me,
do whatever you want with it, but it's consequences are all yours"
license?

The text of the BSD license is here:
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php.

 

[Gary Wright]

The text of the BSD license is here: http://www.opensource.org/
licenses/bsd-license.php.

Are there any lawyers out there who can explain the fascination with
all-caps
text in legal documents? Is there a legal interpretation of all-caps
text that
is different than mixed-case text?

Gary Wright

 

[Timothy Hunter]

Thanks Hunter, very informative
I must say, that was a considerably non-painful read for a software
license

It is very close to the license I use for RMagick. My personal
interpretation is "do what you like with this software, but don't lie
and say you wrote it."

 

[Eleanor McHugh]

Um, how close is the BSD license to this "my code, don't need to
quote me,
do whatever you want with it, but it's consequences are all yours"
license?

Well there's always the "public domain", i.e. no license and
absolutely no need for attribution. Of course that does require the
author to give up their right to place arbitrary restrictions on the
dissemination of their work...


Ellie

Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains

 

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

Well there's always the "public domain", i.e. no license and
absolutely no need for attribution. Of course that does require the
author to give up their right to place arbitrary restrictions on the
dissemination of their work...


Ellie

Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains

Public domain is close to what I want ... however, I think the open
source gang has some problems with "public domain". And I want something
that says if someone figures out a way to destroy a city with my code
that I'm not the one who gets tried for war crimes.

 

[I. P.]

Eleanor McHugh DE I. P.

EM> absolutely no need for attribution.
It's correct only for USA (and probably few other countries). In most
jurisdiction public domain works require attribution.

 

[Eleanor McHugh]

EM> absolutely no need for attribution.
It's correct only for USA (and probably few other countries). In most
jurisdiction public domain works require attribution.

Interesting. So in those jurisdictions a widely distributed anonymous
work wouldn't count as public domain?

Ellie

Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains

 

[Robert Dober]

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding about the Qt license is this -- when you start a project, you decide which license it will use -- commercial or open source -- and the project is forever licensed that way. Say you pick open source. You download the open source version, incorporate it into your project, and you can never convert the project to a commercial one at that point.

Similarly, if you start a commercial project, buy the commercial version of Qt, etc., you can never convert the project to open source. I'm not sure how this fits with the Ruby license.

My own personal opinion is that most "open source" licenses are junk, with the GPL being one of the worst. I think it's high time someone came up with an open source license that says something like this:

"This software is copyright 2007 M. Edward Borasky. Here is the source. You can do anything you want with it, but if you hurt someone with it, it's your fault and not mine. If you make any money with it, it's your money and not mine. If you do something with it that makes you famous, it's your fame and not mine. And I can't prevent you from compiling it and distributing the binaries without distributing the source, so you can do that too."

--
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky, FBG, AB, PTA, PGS, MS, MNLP, NST, ACMC(P)
http://borasky-research.blogspot.com/

If God had meant for carrots to be eaten cooked, He would have given rabbits fire.

I am quite surprised to hear that from you. I always have seen you as
a practical guy and I intend that as a compliment.
Now the exact wording of your licence simply means that someone can
take your code away from you (theoretically not because you can prove
prior art by definition) but you might need a lawyer etc.

I feel that the GPL is not *easy* to use but I also feel that it is important.
I am nervous about the BSD or Ruby licence, although they are
convenient for sure - in the short run.
I have the feeling that they are naive and that the wonderful things
they do not really
protect might be taken away from the community one day.

But I am quite a pessimist.

Cheers
Robert

 

[Timothy Hunter]

Interesting. So in those jurisdictions a widely distributed anonymous
work wouldn't count as public domain?

Ellie

Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains

To be honest, in the U.S. I would not consider anonymous works to be in
the public domain unless there was some very visible and carefully
worded statement that the work was in the public domain, such as seen
here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/. The reason is
that in the U.S. all "creative" works (including software) are
automatically protected by copyright, even if the copyright holder is
not known. This of course produces huge numbers of abandoned works that
can't be used and is amazingly stupid, but it's the law.

 

[I. P.]

Eleanor McHugh DE I. P.

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer.
EM> Interesting. So in those jurisdictions a widely distributed anonymous
EM> work wouldn't count as public domain?
US law defines public domain as (according to [1]) "the Work may be
freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, used, modified, built
upon, or otherwise exploited by anyone for any purpose, commercial or
non-commercial, and in any way, including by methods that have not yet
been invented or conceived"

Berne Convention [2] standing as base for international copyright law
(signed by 162 countries [3]) had defined so called "Moral Rights"
[2.1]. This rights are independent from author's rights to sell,
modify and so on ("economical rights") which she can pass to other
entities.

Moral Rights are assigned automatically by the fact of creating an
artistic work. By creating you receive right "to claim authorship of
the work and to object to any distortion, mutilation or other
modification <...> the said work <...>" [2.1]. This rights are
inalienable: you can't reject to be under protection. US has neglected
concept of inalienable Moral Rights.

So US public domain works are not necessary public domain, e. g., in
Europe.

Now to anonymous work.

As mentioned above, moral right are assigned automatically regardless
of author. Anonymous (and pseudonymous) works are protected by the
same laws with one exception: if author's name can't be determined
with confidence then this work is protected for 50 years since it's
been lawfully made available to public. [2.2]

If anonymous/pseudonymous author has claimed his identity he receive
standard protection for his life and 50 years after (this period can
be extended in his country).

---
[1] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/
[2] BERNE CONVENTION FOR THE PROTECTION OF LITERARY AND ARTISTIC
WORKS: http://www.law.cornell.edu/treaties/berne/overview.html
[2.1] http://www.law.cornell.edu/treaties/berne/6bis.html
[2.2] http://www.law.cornell.edu/treaties/berne/7.html
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_party_to_the_Berne_Convention

 

[Chad Perrin]

Public domain is close to what I want ... however, I think the open
source gang has some problems with "public domain". And I want something
that says if someone figures out a way to destroy a city with my code
that I'm not the one who gets tried for war crimes.

That disclaimer is something you can just attach to the code. If
someone later strips the disclaimer and passes it on, THAT person is the
only one liable for the uses of the code (if there's any liability to be
had), generally speaking. Disclaimers are not particular to licenses,
and can be treated as separate entities (in at least most jurisdictions;
keep in mind that I'm speaking from a USian perspective).

The major reason open source advocates dislike public domain is that
openness of the source is not enforceable in later iterations. For
instance, a book in the public domain can, with a few modifications such
as adding a nifty red cover and a preface, become a copyrighted work,
copyrighted by the guy that wrote the preface and added the cover rather
than by the guy who wrote the book itself.

Another, less common complaint (at least, less common in the US) is that
in some jurisdictions there's no such thing as "public domain". France,
for instance, suffers some shortcomings in this regard: you can't
completely free your code (or whatever) from any legal encumbrances at
all whatsoever except by asserting copyright and licensing it with a
statement like "No rights reserved."

My personal preference for licensing is effectively a public domain
duplicating license, plus strong inheritance so that all derivative
works must be similarly licensed. I also tend to prefer strong
protections against plagiarism. That's why I created the CCD CopyWrite
license that I use for basically everything I do where I'm not required
by contract (or other circumstances) to license things otherwise. I'd
just release everything I wrote into the public domain if I wasn't
concerned about people creating derivative works and taking them OUT of
the public domain.

I'm *not* a fan of *forced* distribution models of open source
licensing, by the way -- in case you were curious.