SpringSource changes open source policies

SpringSource, developer of the Spring framework for Java applications, has "fine tuned" its plan to distinguish between its open source and enterprise versions of the framework. The announcement of the rethink of the previously announced plans appears to have been welcomed by the community.

In a plan announced in September, SpringSource had announced that the open source release of Spring would receive updates for three months after release, while enterprise customers would receive other fixes and updates for up to three years. Community response to this move was somewhat angry, with suggestions that SpringSource were going back on their existing licensing.

The new policy sees SpringSource remove the three month window and commit to regular binary releases of the Spring framework, based on the current trunk version. But this policy will only apply to the current stable version; for example, when Spring 3.0 is released, there will not be formal, tagged updates to Spring 2.5, with open source Spring users expected to upgrade to the current stable version. SpringSource hopes that companies who want longer term support for older releases of Spring will sign up for their enterprise support offering.

The announcement also contained a statement that reaffirmed SpringSource's commitment to using the Apache Licence for open source code releases, and pointed to a "Small Business Pricing" package to be announced in the future for smaller companies wishing to make use of SpringSource support services.

(djwm)