8 Replies Latest reply on Apr 3, 2014 5:24 AM by jaikiran

    latest free jboss7, is it legal tu build EAP6.2 from source for commercial use ?

    jjakub

      EAP 6.1.0 Alpha is latest freely available jboss 7.2, later EAPs are paid.

      Is it legal to take sources of EAP 6.2.0 GA from JBoss Application Server Downloads - JBoss Community , build by myself and use in production environment for commercial purpose ?

        • 1. Re: latest free jboss7, is it legal tu build EAP6.2 from source for commercial use ?
          wdfink

          EAP versions, except those which are explicit allowed for productional use, are only free for development use.

          It doesn't matter whether you use the binaries or the sources.

          This is often discussed here in that forum, you might have a look to that threads.

           

          What you can do is to clone the wildfly github repository and use AS7.x tags/branches to build a version and use it. This is the community edition and free for use.

          • 2. Re: latest free jboss7, is it legal tu build EAP6.2 from source for commercial use ?
            henk53

            Wolf-Dieter Fink wrote:

             

            EAP versions, except those which are explicit allowed for productional use, are only free for development use.

            It doesn't matter whether you use the binaries or the sources.

             

            Uhm, that's not entirely true is it?

             

            The binary builds can only be downloaded when you enter into a subscription, and via that subscription you agree not to use that binary in production.

             

            But the source is LGPL and there can be no such restrictions, nor can you require users to enter into a subscription before downloading the source. This has been discussed extensively on the various jboss forums before.

            • 3. Re: latest free jboss7, is it legal tu build EAP6.2 from source for commercial use ?
              wdfink

              That's my understanding - as you can not download the EAP sources without that subscription.

              But you can use the public github repository and build the version you want/need.

               

              I'm not a lawyer for that licence stuff and as I say this are my two cents,

              • 4. Re: latest free jboss7, is it legal tu build EAP6.2 from source for commercial use ?
                henk53

                Wolf-Dieter Fink wrote:

                 

                That's my understanding - as you can not download the EAP sources without that subscription.

                 

                I'm afraid that's not correct either. The sources can be downloaded without a subscription from ftp://ftp.redhat.com/redhat/jbeap

                 

                The fact that the main JBoss download page (jboss.org/jbossas/downloads) asks for a login and mentions a subscription is wrong. This was reported a long time ago and I think it was jaikiran pai who confirmed this was a mistake and that it should be corrected (but unfortunately nothing happened).

                 

                Per the (L)GPL explicit text, Red Hat is obliged to make the source available for free and without any restrictions, so this is indeed what Red Hat does.

                 

                If you want restricted source, then the license must change to something that WebSphere and WebLogic are using and JBoss should not call itself open source anymore. But since that's not the intention I guess, you have to accept the consequence that the source just cannot be restricted. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

                 

                That all said... I wouldn't recommend any serious company to go into production without a Red Hat support contract. Whether the source is free or not is at the company level really largely irrelevant, as the support contract is needed anyway (the company I worked for previously had besides EAP contracts also support for e.g. PostgreSQL which is probably the most free / non-commercially tied product out there).

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                • 5. Re: latest free jboss7, is it legal tu build EAP6.2 from source for commercial use ?
                  ctomc

                  For what is worth, EAP 6.3 alpha that was released last week, can be used in production without any restrictions....

                  • 6. Re: latest free jboss7, is it legal tu build EAP6.2 from source for commercial use ?
                    henk53

                    Tomaz Cerar wrote:

                     

                    For what is worth, EAP 6.3 alpha that was released last week, can be used in production without any restrictions....

                     

                    That's great But the emphasis should be on the fact that for the alpha version the downloaded binary can be used in production without any restrictions. As was established above, there are no restrictions anyway for the source of any version.

                    • 7. Re: latest free jboss7, is it legal tu build EAP6.2 from source for commercial use ?
                      ctomc

                      henk de boer wrote:

                       

                      That's great But the emphasis should be on the fact that for the alpha version the downloaded binary can be used in production without any restrictions. As was established above, there are no restrictions anyway for the source of any version.

                      Absolutely, it was early in the morning before coffee when I wrote that

                      Tnx for clarification.

                      • 8. Re: latest free jboss7, is it legal tu build EAP6.2 from source for commercial use ?
                        jaikiran

                        henk de boer wrote:


                        The fact that the main JBoss download page (jboss.org/jbossas/downloads) asks for a login and mentions a subscription is wrong. This was reported a long time ago and I think it was jaikiran pai who confirmed this was a mistake and that it should be corrected (but unfortunately nothing happened).

                        That's correct. It was acknowledged as a bug when I had reported that internally some months back. I don't know if it has been fixed though (someone who hasn't accepted the terms and conditions could give it a try by downloading the source from JBoss Application Server Downloads - JBoss Community)