Dears,
I have the project now. I need test and propose some xmpp server to boss for build the commercial purpose. I testing the Openfre few days, It is so far so good. I know it under GPL license, but for commercial? Is this free for commerical? Sorry I am not the license expert.
Thanks
The current license is Apache and there are no issues using it commercially. If you want to redistribute the code, then things may get a bit trickier. In general, if you redistribute with the license attached, I don’t think there is an issue. I am not a lawyer though.
daryl
yes is open source my friend
Openfire was inititially created by Jive software. The CTO of Jive (Matt Tucker) changed the license from GPL to Apache to use broader commercial usage of Openfire/Spark (http://community.igniterealtime.org/message/204329#204329). I know at least one big commercial product that uses Openfire and Spark as foundation. They contribute some code back to Spark, but there is no obligation (like in GPL).
You are perfectly save to use Openfire/Spark for any commercial reason and you can redistribute the product as long as you put proper references. You may not sell Openfire/Spark without significant features that were created by your company which justify the license fees (e.g. you may create a telefony system that uses OF for chat but the phone elements are done by you company).
Sorry to say, but open source does not make commercial usage legal by default. The use of GPL code in Openfire (Apache license) is pretty difficult. The only legal way to do this is to put the GPL parts in plugins that can live without Openfire.
GPL tends to impose it’s license term to other projects which would force a commercial code element to become public if it is put to Openfire. Currently a commercial internal development can stay an internal code because of the Apache licence. The former GPL licensing would have forced the code to become public. Obviously this publication of intelectual property is not necessarily in the interest of a commercial company.