I believe that Mongrel2 has the chance to break the religious hold that programming languages have on organizations, businesses, and the average working programmer. Mongrel2's design and programming language agnostic philosophy could mean greater freedom, more agility, and better cooperation between everyone working at a high tech company today. Even though Mongrel2 is only a web server, its goals and direction could be a major inspiration for other projects and people to design their systems to be programming language agnostic as well.

I believe in this programming language agnostic movement so strongly that I'm going to bet the farm on the goal by giving Mongrel2 the most flexible license I possibly can so that it can reach the largest audience possible.

Mongrel2 is now BSD licensed with commit c4b9041f42 and I want everyone to use it and not have to worry about licensing issues or problems with contributors.

The license is the basic 3 clause BSD license:

Copyright (c) 2010, Zed A. Shaw and Mongrel2 Project Contributors.
All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are
met:
    * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
      notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
    * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
      notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
      documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
    * Neither the name of the Mongrel2 Project, Zed A. Shaw, nor the names
      of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products
      derived from this software without specific prior written
      permission.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS
IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO,
THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR
CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL,
EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO,
PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR
PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING
NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS
SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

The only reason the 3rd clause is there is so companies can't use my name (or a contributor's) to promote their product. Otherwise they can mention Mongrel2 for all its worth, sell Mongrel2 cloud services, go crazy telling everyone they use Mongrel2. Just don't say I or other contributors or the project promotes your product without permission.

My dream would be that in some small way Mongrel2 destroys language religions. Everyone has their preference, and you've completely got a right to hate any programming language you want. I know I do. However, I believe none of this religion fits into the science and art of creating technology. You should be able to use the tool that works best, and change that tool later if its demise can take your company with it.

If I could summarize the entire philosophy it would be:

NO LANGUAGE SHALL BE KING.

Donate If You Agree

Now that I've fully released Mongrel2 and licensed it liberally, I feel alright asking folks for donations so I can keep working on it. If you believe in the goals of the project, or you just want a bad ass web server, then please donate.

If you donate and want your name listed as a donor then send me an email after and I'll put you on the list.

I'm also actively pursuing sponsorship and may have some more announcements later.

And I promise not to buy guitars with it,

Zed