License of SmartGWT? Is it free software or not?

[Cameron Wallace McKenzie]

So, I want to write a program and make millions on it. I will probably make hundreds on it if I don't actually lose money, but that's another story.

I'm now writing it using SmartGWT, which is what GWT-Ext has transformed into, and most of the program was written using that.

This page says that SmartGWT is governed by the GNU Lesser, which means I can write and distribute my program:

http://code.google.com/p/smartgwt/

But, this page also says SmartGWT is based on the SmartClient library, and SmartClient only allows the use of their product for internal testing:

"Deployment or external exposure of works which use the Software is not permitted under the terms of this Agreement. You must acquire a deployment license for the Software from Isomorphic Software in order to deploy such works."

http://www.smartclient.com/

So, what's the deal? Can I develop and deploy my SmartGWT without giving anyone any kickbacks, or do I have to pony up some bills to smartclient when I'm done development?

Any lawyers in the house?

-Cameron McKenzie

[Charles Kendrick]

Yes, SmartGWT is free software.

There are free, LGPL versions of both SmartClient and SmartGWT.

http://smartclient.com/product

The free version of SmartGWT is based on the free version of SmartClient.

The text you found is for the evaluation of the commercial versions of SmartClient.

[Cameron Wallace McKenzie]

Charles Kendrick, did you join JavaRanch just to help me out with my lack of knowledge of SmartGWT licenses? Man, that's awesome. We love seeing that kind of dedication here at the ranch!

I googled a bit more last night, and found a few articles on theserverside.com that dispelled my initial hesitations. I see that it is a much more enterprise set of tools and a special SDK that smartclient provides that includes the licensing aspect. From what I see, it was some licensing issues that actually attracted developers to smartclient/smartgwt and away from JavaScript ES or whatever it was called.

Thanks so much for joining the site and helping to dispell my incorrect assumptions.

-Cameron McKenzie

[Charles Kendrick]

Yeah, I did join just for that question. We just like to clear up misconceptions wherever they appear.

We get did a surge of interest due to that licensing brouhaha, but it's really about the feature advantages these days. We think our free version compares favorably to other companies commercial versions, and our commercial versions are another level beyond.

You'd probably appreciate the advanced Hibernate integration:

http://www.smartclient.com/smartgwtee/showcase/#master_detail_batch

There's no server-side code in that sample because no server-side code is required.

[salvin francis]

welcome to javaranch Charles Kendrick