Updated SpringSource Distribution Policy

Note: I'm updating this article's title. Rod had noted it's not a licensing change, rather a distribution change. I made the change to my post text, but not the URL or the article title.

Read the updated SpringSource distribution decision on Rod Johnson's Blog Page. This is a change to a recent policy decision by SpringSource to provide updates for 3 months after a new major/minor release.

The change provides for releases of builds to the open source community until a new major/minor version is delivered. For example, the current 2.5.5 release would be revved to 2.5.6 (based on Rod's information) and once a 3.0 release is provided, the 2.5.x line would be provided but not updated (unless your organization is a SpringSource licensee under support contract).

This is a fair agreement, as open source teams can now continue building applications based on Spring and decide when they are ready to update to a newer version of the software, without worrying about purchasing support. Concordant with this change are upcoming licensing models for small business and systems integrators.