With some amazement I’ve been browsing through various recent blog posts regarding the JRuby team’s skepticism that Microsoft will be able to implement IronRuby (a Ruby implementation targeting the .NET platform) anytime soon. Their skepticism apparently stems from the claim that Microsoft employees are apparently barred from even looking at open source-licensed code, at risk of termination for flaunting this restriction. While I’m not convinced this is enough to prevent Microsoft from eventually creating an implementation through reverse engineering, I am particularly struck by the notion that this restriction is a blanket rule for all Microsoft employees.

I’d certainly imagine this has to do with the logical fear an otherwise well-meaning Microsoft developer could incorporate some of the open source code into a Microsoft project, setting off a firestorm regarding whether that Microsoft project is now subject to the terms of the corresponding open source license. Of course, Microsoft has far more lawyers than most, meaning the matter would likely largely be moot however this is nonetheless a situation the company would rather not find itself.

However surely for projects such as IronRuby and IronPython, such restrictions would logically be lifted?

I did some rooting around, and sure enough John Lam (the IronRuby lead) implies as much in a posting on the Ruby-core newsgroup:

John Lam’s post

JRuby developer Ola Bini explains skepticism:
Ola Bini’s blog post