On Development Licenses
Many people know that the Oracle Technology web site holds copies of all Oracle technology software - the database server, the app server and so on. Moreover it allows you a free membership and a development license of the software. There are however two common misconceptions about this software - the second of which you may have found me suggesting in the past. These are
- development systems don't need licenses and
- you can download the software and learn for free.
The only problem with these is that they are in fact not true. Lets read the relevant terms, which are quite clear for legalese.
Ownership and Restrictions We retain all ownership and intellectual property rights in the programs. The programs may be installed on one computer only, and used by one person in the operating environment identified by us. You may make one copy of the programs for backup purposes.
You may not: - use the programs for your own internal data processing or for any commercial or production purposes, or use the programs for any purpose except the development of a single prototype of your application;
- use the application you develop with the programs for any internal data processing or commercial or production purposes without securing an appropriate license from us;
- continue to develop your application after you have used it for any internal data processing, commercial or production purpose without securing an appropriate license from us, or an Oracle reseller;
- remove or modify any program markings or any notice of our proprietary rights;
- make the programs available in any manner to any third party;
- use the programs to provide third party training;
- assign this agreement or give or transfer the programs or an interest in them to another individual or entity; - cause or permit reverse engineering (unless required by law for interoperability), disassembly or decompilation of the programs;
- disclose results of any program benchmark tests without our prior consent; or, - use any Oracle name, trademark or logo.
emphasis mine. So allowing more than one user to access the development system would be a breach - for most of the systems commonly described as development systems this would catch them, equally most development systems I have come across are not a single prototype of an applcation. They are developments to a system that exists already - foten one that the developers did not develop.
Equally it is how to see using the otn software for learning purposes meets the 'solely for developing a single protype' standard either. So when on the internet you find advice like this you might want to take care in seeing how this applies to you.
You're totally correct
Niall, you're totally correct, and I've lost count of the amount of places I've been to where customers seem to think that databases used for development can be set up free of charge. As you say, the terms under which you can download software from OTN are quite onerous, all you can do is develop a short proof of concept on a single user/developer basis.
The training issue is important as well, and the restriction in the OTN license specifically excludes you from using the downloaded software to provide third-party training even if the third-parties have their own licensed software. One to watch out for if you intend hiring a hotel conference room and running your own public course.
However, if you sign up for the Oracle Partner Network though, you can get access to software for "free" for use in either demonstrations, or for developing solutions for customers (i.e. without all the restrictions in the OTN license). You can't use it for internal purposes (i.e. build a company website, build internal databases etc) but you can get an unlimited number of licenses free of charge that can be used to build or demonstrate your Oracle based solution or service offering. You can also use these licenses to provide training to your own employees, or to licensed end-users (note: not unlicensed end-users), which is why Jon and I signed up to the partner network scheme (around £1k for the introductory level) to cover us for development and for providing training to Oracle customers.
As you say, a tricky area, and whilst you don't usually see Oracle enforcing this personal training/prototyping clause, if you're in a commercial situation it's wise to be aware of the official license restrictions and take advantage of schemes like the Partner Network one.
cheers, Mark
Self-education
I think the 'self-education' argument arises from the specific 'You may not' for "use the programs to provide third party training;". It explicitly states third-party, rather than training/education in general.
It can be argued that 'development of a prototype' necessarily requires (or should) an understanding of the database functionality and that self-education is therefore a preliminary stage of development. Pre 'XE', this was probably a stronger argument. With a more liberal 'XE' license available, this is a better option for self-education (or third-party training) as long as you don't need the Enterprise Edition components.
I believe that in the
I believe that in the commercial world one's production systems are generally licensed by CPU and one's test/dev/QA etc environments are usually licensed by user.
A thought from Oracle about it
Here is opinion from an Oracle employee about it:
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?messageID=1971249#1971249
Oracle is very heavy
Oracle is very heavy
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