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JIDE Common Layer is a dual-licensed. The two licenses are GPL with classpath exception and free commercial license.

The first license is GPL with classpath exception. This is the same license under which the Java platform is released. You can read the license agreement from the link below.

GPL v2 with Classpath Exception: http://openjdk.java.net/legal/gplv2+ce.html

The second license is the original commercial license under which all other JIDE products are released, except it is free of charge in this case. You can read the license agreement from the link below.

Commercial License: http://www.jidesoft.com/purchase/EULA.htm

FAQ:

1. Why do you choose dual-licensing?

We want to find a license agreement that allows as many people to use this project as possible but still protects our copyright and commercial interests. None of the license agreement can satisfy both conditions by itself. GPL is used by a large percent of open source projects but proprietary projects are not allowed to use it. BSD, Apache or public domain license allows almost anybody to use the project but does not prevent other 3rd party taking our source code and commercially marketing their enhanced version to compete with our own commercial offer. That's why we decided to choose dual-licensing. For most open source projects, as long as GPL-compatible, you can choose the GPL license. For all commercial companies, you can choose the free commercial license as long as you follow the license agreement.

2. If I modify your source code to fix a bug or add an enhancement, should I contribute the change back to you?

As a matter of fact, you must contribute the changes back to us either you choose GPL or free commercial license to comply with the license agreements. It is for your own benefit too because you don't want to maintain a different version of source code yourself which will cause trouble when you want to upgrade to a new version of JIDE. This is actually one reason we don't want to go with BSD or Apache license. Since the project is open sourced on https://jide-oss.dev.java.net/, you can easily use Subversion to check in the changes you made. You may need to ask us for the permission to check in. Our developers will review the changes ahd commit them. 

3. I have some cool Swing components I developed myself. I would like to open source it. Should I start a new project or should I contribute it to your project?

It is totally up to you. If you decide to contribute it to us and we agree to accept those components, we will maintain them for you in the future, even you might grow out of it. But we do require you to give the copyright of the components to JIDE so that we can release them under the same license agreement as all other components in JIDE Common Layer.

4. I am a paid JIDE customer. What does this open source project mean to me?

Pretty much business as usual. The JIDE Common Layer (the jide-common.jar) is free for all paid JIDE customers since its initial release. If you are making commercial products, the same commercial license agreement still applies. The only benefit I can think of is now you can see the source code of all the classes in jide-common.jar even you didn't purchase source code license from us.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email sales@jidesoft.com.