Thanks everybody for your meaningful response. It gave me more clarity on my doubts.

What I got now is 
1. I can develop a RHQ agent side plugin (*closed-source*) for managing my application and distribute it as commercial plugin and charge licence for that.
2. If I develop a RHQ server side plugin then I have to distribute source code under GPL
3. If I develop my own custom UI using server side remote APIs (just like CLI), I have to distribute source code under GPL. (Idea here is to develop something like coregui.war)

Can somebody please let me know what I have to do if I write a new server application or mobile application which consumes RHQ's REST API and show my own apps UI? I know REST API is part of RHQ server and may be licensed as GPL, but still want to get more clarity on this.

Thanks again,
Prashant



On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 5:35 AM, Charles Crouch <ccrouch@redhat.com> wrote:
As Mazz said, and I will re-iterate, we are not lawyers. This is NOT legal advice :-)
If you follow this advice, and it all goes horribly wrong, you can't blame us :-)
That said, here goes. Other's on the list, please correct my errors/omissions....

So first off its perfectly possible to use RHQ as part of a *commercial* product.
That's exactly what Red Hat does with JBoss ON: http://www.redhat.com/products/jbossenterprisemiddleware/operations-network/

But what you're really asking about is using RHQ as part of a *closed source* product.
This is where the distinction which mazz draws between the GPL and LGPL is important.

If your product *alters* any of RHQ's LGPL/GPL code (e.g. tweaks to the ui), or *links* (e.g. imports in .java) to any of the RHQ GPL code, then when you distribute your product you will need to also distribute that source under the GPL or LGPL as appropriate.

But, if your product just links to the RHQ LGPL code (e.g you are writing a plugin to manage/monitor something) then there is no requirement to release your code, when you distribute your product. For example there are ISVs that build their closed source apps and distribute them on top of JBoss (which is LGPL), similarly we've worked with partners to develop plugins for RHQ which are not open source.


Thanks
Charles

----- Original Message -----
> On Wed, 2012-02-01 at 10:54 +0530, Prashant Shewale wrote:
> >          I would like to ask if we can use RHQ framework as base
> >          for
> > commercial project. I would like to design management software for
> > our
> > enterprise software using RHQ as a base. I know RHQ is licensed as
> > GPL
> > and so its difficult to sell closed source product. Can you please
> > provide me some guidelines?
>
> I would guess that virtually all, if not all, of the people on this
> list
> are not lawyers, including me. Therefore, any advice you get here, I
> would not pay attention too :) ESPECIALLY if you plan on marketing a
> commercial project, I wouldn't rely on the accuracy of the opinions
> you
> might get here.
>
> I can give you the following facts, however. In general, the RHQ
> Server
> is GPL licensed, the core RHQ Agent wrapper (e.g. AgentMain.java) is
> GPL
> licensed but the internal, pluggable plugin container (and all of its
> internals and the plugins themselves) are LGPL licensed.
>
> The plugin container and plugins are licensed with LGPL to allow
> commercial or third party offerings to embed the management agent
> functionality (which we call the plugin container) in other Java
> application runtimes to perform management/monitoring functionality
> for
> you. We did this, for example, for the old JBossAS 5 management web
> console (called Embedded Jopr) - and JBossAS 5 is LGPL (which is one
> reason why we gave the plugin container the same license).
>
> You are free to run write your own plugins, obviously, and plug them
> into an out-of-box RHQ environment. That's clear. You are also free
> to
> embedd the plugin container itself into your own Java application
> (due
> to the LGPL license) such as was already done in another LGPL
> project:
> JBossAS 5.
>
> If you need more specific information, we'd have to have our lawyers
> talk to your lawyers :)
>
> John "IANAL" Mazz
>
> _______________________________________________
> rhq-users mailing list
> rhq-users@lists.fedorahosted.org
> https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/rhq-users
>
>
>
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