Ruby on Rails, often shortened to Rails or RoR, is an open source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

 web application framework

Web application framework

A web application framework is a software framework that is designed to support the development of dynamic websites, web applications and web services. The framework aims to alleviate the overhead associated with common activities performed in Web development...

 for the Ruby programming language

Ruby (programming language)

Ruby is a dynamic, reflective, general-purpose object-oriented programming language that combines syntax inspired by Perl with Smalltalk-like features. Ruby originated in Japan during the mid-1990s and was first developed and designed by Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto...

.


Ruby on Rails was extracted by David Heinemeier Hansson

David Heinemeier Hansson

David Heinemeier Hansson is a Danish programmer and the creator of the popular Ruby on Rails web development framework and the Instiki wiki...

 from his work on Basecamp

Basecamp (software)

Basecamp is a web-based project-management tool developed by 37signals and launched in 2004. The Ruby on Rails framework was extracted from the Basecamp project.-Features:...

, a project management tool by 37signals

37signals

37signals is a privately held web application company based in Chicago, Illinois. The firm was co-founded in 1999 by Jason Fried, Carlos Segura, and Ernest Kim as a web design company. Segura left in 2000 and Kim left in 2003, leaving Fried as the only remaining founder.Since mid-2004, the...

 (now a web application

Web application

A web application is an application that is accessed over a network such as the Internet or an intranet. The term may also mean a computer software application that is coded in a browser-supported language and reliant on a common web browser to render the application executable.Web applications are...

 company).
Hansson first released Ruby on Rails as open source in July 2004, but did not share commit

Commit (data management)

In the context of computer science and data management, commit refers to the idea of making a set of tentative changes permanent. A popular usage is at the end of a transaction. A commit is an act of committing.-Data management:...

 rights to the project until February 2005.
In August 2006 the framework reached a milestone when Apple announced that it would ship Ruby on Rails with Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

 v10.5 "Leopard"

Mac OS X v10.5

Mac OS X Leopard is the sixth major release of Mac OS X, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. Leopard was released on 26 October 2007 as the successor of Tiger , and is available in two variants: a desktop version suitable for personal computers, and a...

,
which was released in October 2007.

Ruby on Rails version 2.3 was released on March 15, 2009.