Skip to Content
United States
Worldwide
Sun Community Source Licensing (SCSL)
General FAQ
|
GeneralQ: What is Community Source?
A:
For a definition of Community Source, see Community Source Licensing Principles, written by Richard Gabriel and Bill Joy.
Q: How much does Community Source Code cost?
A:
There is no charge to access Community Source Code for research and development purposes. With each technology there are different business models associated with internal deployment and commercial use of the technology. Some models include royalties and/or trademark fees at these levels. If or when you wish to extend your use beyond research and development, make sure to review the technology-specific license.
Q: How long can I use the source code before I have to pay?
A:
There is no limit on the license term for research and development. When you decide to distribute products incorporating the technology you will need to sign the commercial use section of the license and, depending on the technology, an associated trademark license for use of the logo. Some of these agreements do include royalties for the technology and/or fees for the logo use and support. Again, the business models for commercial use are different with each technology, so please review these licenses separately.
Q: Why is Sun opening its source code?
A:
Sun believes that broad access to source code for the technologies it provides under community source licenses will benefit the community as a whole by creating opportunities for participants to innovate and share their innovations with the rest of the community. This is expected to speed the process of (i) identifying and fixing bugs in the technologies, (ii) commercialization of products implementing the technologies, and (iii) development of high performance applets and applications which run on the technologies.
Q: How do I license the source code?
A:
For information about licensing, see the Program and Licensing Overview.
Q: What's the difference between the license on the web site and what I license later when I go to distribute software?
A:
The web download requires you "click and accept" at a minimum, the Research Use portion of the license. By doing this, you agree to basic rights and responsibilities for using the source code for research and development.
When you are ready to deploy your research internally or to distribute your product commercially, additional rights and responsibilities apply, some which are unique to specific technologies (for example, internal use rights are sometimes included in the initial click-thru license). All technologies require you and Sun to sign a commercial use attachment if you wish to distribute the technology. Your original research use license will still apply for research use, and the signed license will apply for commercial use.
Q: Do I have to license the code to get Sun to adopt my modifications?
A:
Yes, it is necessary to license the source code in order to be able to actually make modifications. Only community source code licensees will have access to the modifications made by other community licensees.
Q: If Sun uses my modifications, do I get paid?
A:
No. As a member of the community, any modifications you decide to share are posted to benefit the community at large. This is covered under the "Contributor Grant" section of the license.
Q: Are there restrictions on the international use of the source code?
A:
Due to limited intellectual property protection and enforcement in certain countries, the Java 2 SDK source code may only be distributed to an authorized list of countries. You will not be able to access the source code if you are downloading from a country that is not on this list. We are continuously reviewing this list for addition of other countries.
Q: I am in a country that is authorized to download Sun Community Source Code. Why can`t I download?
A:
In order to determine that the users who are downloading our source code are in fact in the authorized countries, we need to be able to verify your domain. This requires that your domain return to our site a value as part of a reverse domain name lookup. If this value is not returned, the software can not verify your location and as a result, denies you the ability to download the software. You might be able to ask your network administrator why your address fails a reverse domain name lookup.
Q: Can I come back later to complete a download?
A:
Yes. For Java technology, follow these instructions:
Return to the Sun Download Center and sign on with the User ID and password you created when you first accepted the "click wrap" license. After you sign on, you will be shown a listing of all of your previous orders. Find and click on the order number for your original community source code order. The next page you receive will be the receipt page from your original order. This receipt page contains the download area for technology you chose to license.Jini Network Technology is currently provided under the Java Developer Connection service. In the unlikely event you must abort your download process, simply re-initiate the download command a second time.
Q: Who should I call for support?
A:
For information on Support options, please contact your SWAT sales representative. Compatibility (TCK) tests are also available via a Support option.
Q: Who should I call if I have problems downloading?
A:
If you are having problems downloading community source code from the Sun Download Center and would like assistance, send mail via the "Contact" at the bottom of the Sun Download Center pages. Please provide a detailed description of the problems you are experiencing.
Q: If I agree to license one technology, do I automatically get rights to others?
A:
No. While the licenses use the same structure, the rights and responsibilities vary depending on the technology. You must "click through" terms for each technology separately.
Q: I'm looking for the Sun Java Virtual Machine (JVM), Java Plug-in or Java Runtime Environment (JRE) for my operating system. Where do I go?
A:
Please visit http://java.sun.com/getjava/download.html to download.
Q: I want to learn more about Java technology. Where should I start?
A:
The java.sun.com and jcp.org web sites are good starting points for learning more about Java technologies.
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
