Ruby on Rails is open source software, so not only is it free to use, you can also help make it better. More than 4,200 people already have contributed code to Rails. It’s easier than you think to become one of them.
Optimizing for programmer happiness with Convention over Configuration is how we roll. Ruby on Rails has been popularizing both concepts along with a variety of other controversial points since the beginning. To learn more about why Rails is so different from many other web-application frameworks and paradigms, examine The Rails Doctrine.