Hi all

We're in the process of porting a system written for MySql to Oracle.
I would like to find out what the Oracle licensing issues are. The
license agreement on OTN states:

<snip>
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.
<snip>

The problem I have is that we have 4 developers working on the system.
Does this mean that we need to purchase licenses for the 3 users? The
system is not used for any internal data processing.

The database server will be running on Red Hat Linux 7.3 (possibly
upgraded to RH 9 in the near future).

Any help in this regard would be appreciated.

Ron

RonGeorge (AT) hotmail (DOT) com (Sporge) wrote in message news:<7e3b24c7.0406210550.44a59835 (AT) posting (DOT) google.com>...
You can download all the software from OTN you would like for
development, learning, and investigative purposes free of charge.
When you deploy the system, internally or externally, however, you
need to have licenses for the Oracle products you are using. You can
purchase licenses bsaed on the processors in the machine running
Oracle, in which case an unlimited number of users can connect, or
based on the number of users that need to connect.

Standard disclaimer: Licensing questions probably ought to be directed
to Oracle Sales. Relying on the legal interpretation of some guy on
the internet is probably not something you want to have to explain if
there is ever a question about your license compliance. There will
almost certainly be issues or subtlties in the license agreement that
I haven't covered here.

Justin Cave <jcave (AT) ddbcinc (DOT) com>
Distributed Database Consulting, Inc.
http://www.ddbcinc.com/askDDBC

Sporge wrote:

Although the final answer MUST come from Oracle, the general interpretation
to the licensing is close to this:

1) Each developer can get their own copy of anything from the OTN and use it
to their heart's content to develop a 'product' UNTIL the 'product' goes
into production.

2) At the time the 'product' goes into production, someone is getting a
business benefit from the 'product'. The benefit may be reduced cost for a
business process, new business capability or functionality, or some way of
generating revenue.

So once the 'product' goes into production, Oracle want to see a return on
their investment (which was, at the least, letting you use the Oracle s/w
for free). You would then need to buy appropriate copies of what you need
to go into production and provide adequate support.

Generally, in your environment, this could be:

By CPU - one license for each CPU regardless of the number of database
instances:

- database license for the production database
- database license for the test/development database

It is a poor idea to have the test and prod on the same machine. Let's say
2 CPU for a twin-CPU server running prod, and 1 CPU license for all the
developers and testers on the 1-CPU test box.

By developer - one license for each person using development tools, for each
tool type, such as JDeveloper, even if the share tools on a single machine.

3) Get Support to access Metalink. This matches the licenses that you have
purchased.

Additional thoughts:

One very common mistake is to purchase Enterprise Edition when Standard
Edition, or Standard Edition One, will suffice. Guaranteed overpayment,
and the base reason why the 'Oracle is expensive' myth abounds.

Another common mistake, with guarantees that you will overpay as well, is to
simply port a MySQL app to Oracle without understanding the additional
capabilities (such as intrinsic Message Queueing, SMTP mailer, built-in
workflow, built-in HTTP server, etc.) or the development process (as
described by Tom Kyte's Expert One-on-One Oracle and Effective Oracle
Database Design books).

The above are my own idea - you really need to get the answer from a current
(authorized) Oracle employee.

/Hans

Hi Hans/Justin

Thanks for the reply to mail.

We are purely a development shop, we do not use the final product at
all. The 3rd party companies we develop for generally have other
Oracle products and thus would have their own licenses. If they do not
have existing licenses for the Oracle products used then they would
have to purchase them.

My question is, since we do not use any of the products internally
(other than during testing, no production data used) does this mean
that we do not need any licenses?

Thanks again,
Ron

Sporge wrote:

Why do you insist on asking here? The only way to get an answer that is
legally binding is to ask Oracle.


Think for a moment:does someone (anyone) have any benefit that might be
translated into a $ value - time saved in production, less downtime, faster
user response resulting in less idle time? If the answer is yes, then
Oracle wants (and deserves) their share of that benefit.

Another way to evaluate: if Oracle asked you to remove all their products
for 30 days, would there be any impact on your revenue?

In your shop, I see a potential benefit is the ability to generate a revenue
stream by coding for others.

Oracle's free licenses specifically state 'for development purposes only'.
No commercial training, no testing, no evaluation - development only. And
that, only until a financial benefit is realized through operational
assistance to the company or revenue stream.

I don't see anything confusing about that.

/Hans

Sporge wrote:

Does ANYONE use the final product?

No where in the license does it say the developer must put the result into
production. It does say (paraphrasing) when the resulting code is put into
production, the development licenses must be converted into 'real'
licenses.

Hans Forbrich wrote
Yes, the clients that purchase the software will use the final
product. My thoughts are that the since these clients will be
purchasing Oracle licenses in order to use our product, Oracle will be
getting their share of the benefits.

I am in the process of communicating with Oracle with regards to these
issues. Thanks for responding to my questions here in the news group.

Regards
Ron

Sporge wrote:

Answer this very simple question:

If you were forced to uninstall Oracle's product from your computers, would
there be any financial impact on your organization?

(Think - loss of billing, inability to support your customer, etc.)