Re: Database Royalty Requirements for Sublicensee after Termination

On Thu, 09 Mar 2006 14:18:03 -0800, creno wrote:

> I re-read my above post, and think I need to clear something up. The
> client had a signed agreement with the Application Developer, that
> agreement is invalid because it constitutes and illegal tying
> arrangement via tying an up front license purchase (about $60k) to
> recurring maintenance fees. Stating upon discontinuance of the
> maintenance agreement, the client must discontinue use of the software,
> which constitutes an illegal tying arrangment prohibited by US
> Anti-trust laws.

Fine. But I suspect irrelevant.

The following is an interpretation from my Oracle agreements and should be reasonably close to the rules covering your clients. (However - IANAL, and even if I were, I have not reviewed the contract governing the use of the licenses in your client's case and can not speak authoritativly to that agreement.)

Oracle currently has two kinds of basic time-frames for licenses: perpetual and time-limited (term).

Perpetual: you can use forever at the version you have purchased. Term: you agree to stop using it when the term expires.

As a separate item, you can also purchase annual support for each variant. That support permits unlimited maintenance calls and unlimited patches and upgrades during the maintenance period.

One interpretation of the support is that it revises the version in the sales contract to whatever version was available at the end of the supported year.

Support does not override the time period in the sales agreement.

>
> My client simply want to continue using the database for occasiional
> access, and wants to avoid any Oracle licensing infringements. The
> database versions range from 8.15 to 8.17.

Again, we have not determined the Ts & Cs of the license contract between your client and Oracle. We do appear to have some between the cl;ient and the developer, and possibly a separate set between the developer and Oracle. There may be no contract at all.

Who knows. A lawyer needs to get involved.

>
> One thing we have considered is just migrating them to Oracle Express,
> but aren't sure how that will work with their Form6 application. Also,
> these agencies only have about 10 users each, so I am not sure how much
> Oracle would be interested anyway.
>

Ooopsss - we are also dealing with a Forms environment. Ther ecould be licenses involved. Although traditionally the Forms client-server runtime has been freely distributable, I do not know whether that distribution required a valid developer license to be in force.

Forms6 will not work too well with Oracle Express, but it's not impossible. It's also possible the functionality from Forms could be easily and inexpensively duplicated with the Express Edition's "Application Express" capability - bonus in that the Forms license is definintely not required.

However, fewer than 10 users implies that the system would possibly run using Standard Edition One (SE1), which has a fairly low price tag. The SE1 perpetual license is $149/user (minimum 5 per CPU on a 1 or 2 CPU machine) and the support is 22% of the license. You should be able to get SE1 licenses at Oracle 9i Release 2 that will support Forms6i

However, as always there is a general disclaimer on licensing issues discussed on the net - all we can do is give guidelines, advice or experience based information. None of this is binding on anyone.

-- 
Hans Forbrich                           
Canada-wide Oracle training and consulting
mailto: Fuzzy.GreyBeard_at_gmail.com   
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