Does the licence allow this ?

[Cloud]

Hello,

My question concerns the commercial editions of SmartGWT and Smarclient as i would be allowed to do what i'm asking for with the LGPL edition but i'm interesting into features like portal and so on... and i have no idea if the commercial licence allow me this :

Let's say i develop an internet public service like livejournal or blogger and let my users point their web domains on their accounts on my web site (the same thing wordpress service is already doing).

I would have Smartclient licences for my developers but would i have to buy licences also for my users ? This is the question i'm interested in
as i'm looking for a solution in such a way my public content editors won't have to buy a developer licence, they are just content editors after
all, not developers. If i ask them to buy a developer licence, they won't follow me and i lost my audience (of course i can't buy licences for an internet audience...)

What would do these internet users you may ask me ?
Well, basically, i would like them to be able :
- provide content of SmarClient gui elements (like tab title, names of elements in a treeview, portal titles and so on)
- choose smartclient skins developed by my developers

but i also want to allow them :
- to choose their colors in order the smartclient gui elements palette fit easier their web space.
- eventually change the page layout with the help of Smarclient gui elements.

Thanks for your answer which would help me to choose the "adapted gui toolkit" as choosing a toolkit on the technical side is not always easy :) and it's also true regarding licences :)
My guess is the licence allows me to do these things as unlimited deployment is included but i'm not so sure so i prefer to ask

[Isomorphic]

Please don't post duplicates (other post deleted).

Your questions are answered in the Product & Licensing FAQ - click the Product link to find it.

[Cloud]

???
I posted only one "Does the licence allow this ?" thread so i don't understand at all, you solved something i'm not aware of or as i edited few times this thread, maybe that create some other entries ? if so, that means a bug in the forum.

I already checked Product & Licensing FAQ twice before posting, now a third time but i see nothing covering the situation i exposed, that's why i asked for, looking for a "yes" or "no" as a beginning of answer that others could appreciate by reading this thread.

EDIT : oh i see, you deleted the thread "PHP or not" but it exposed a very different point, nothing about licence but technical points. I took some time to write something for which there will never be an answer now and that no one can be aware of here, that's quite rude...

[Isomorphic]

The Product & Licensing FAQ explains which developers needs a license. Apply that definition to your users.

Sorry if we deleted a post with separate questions. Each post had heavily overlapping questions and had further been edited. It appeared that you had edited them to be the same or substantially the same.

You had a question about Quercus for PHP? We're not familiar with the product, so we can't comment very deeply, however it's likely that, if you have a choice, you should have the SmartGWT Server as the first recipient of the request, and then call into PHP via Quercus as needed.

However once you've been through the QuickStart Guide and read about the capabilities of the SmartGWT Server, you may find you have no particular need for PHP - it would take some very substantial library that is not available for Java to make it worthwhile to introduce PHP into your deployment.

[Cloud]

I understand and while it's natural that all developers need a licence but my question were on internet users. I gave the worpress example as a short way of expressing the question, that is : if an online service like wordpress.com were using smartclient, they would have developers licences, but would it be the same for their internet blog users ? that is the question and i didn't success in finding the answer in the licence faq page. An even better example would be the same question with the jboss gatein product but i don't know if you're aware of it while i guess you know wordpress service.

Regarding SmartGWT, it were just to know if it could be used for managing the gui elements that have been exposed previously in a php page. I mentionned php and Quercus for detailing the context but at the end we can completly forget them, quercus is just the thing that translate php into java, so i could have said it in a different way, that is the conclusion without the details : can i use my java framework for my online web service exposing the gui elements which deals in return with smartgwt ?

[Isomorphic]

Again, if the Wordpress users do not fit the definition of people who need SmartGWT licenses, then they do not use SmartGWT licenses.

If your integration scenario is that you have a PHP backend and it's going to send out a bunch of HTML and you want to replace / add interactivity to those components, this is not really the architecture of a modern enterprise application, and is more suited to JQuery as opposed to Smart GWT or even GWT in general.

If you are trying to talking to a PHP server in a more modern architecture where there are client-side components full managing presentation and they only need to contact the server for data, use Smart GWT with the RestDataSource.

If you intend to have some kind of hybrid PHP/Java server (again in a modern architecture where the server is just providing secure data services) it's better to have the Smart GWT server framework be the first point of contact in processing requests from the client.

[Cloud]

Again, if the Wordpress users do not fit the definition of people who need SmartGWT licenses, then they do not use SmartGWT licenses.

Ok, so, concluding by this, it's a question of terms i don't understand then and particularly the term "integrate" :
Product and Licensing FAQ => Which developers need to buy a license ? and the main part is ilustrated by your example "For example, you may have developers who create general purpose Java APIs, WSDL or XML-based services which are also used by non-SmartClient applications. Developers who integrate SmartClient user interfaces with these services will need SmartClient licenses, but developers who create these services will not"

Clearly, i build a portal offer consisting in allowing people to build a web space with their portlets. Following your example, i integrate SmartClient user interfaces with some services so i need licences.
On the opposite, my internet audience will drag porlet and others gui components to build their space, i don't call that integrate but if you have a different definition for which i can't be noticed in any way by you, then i will dive in losting months of work i won't be allowed to use for just a problem of a word definition.

Following your 3 suppositions : the PHP backend (yii framework) is choosed for the way it deals with security, the way it deals with databases, the added values in terms of gui components (mainly jquery), the added values of numerous php libraries, the added values of the language itself as java has not been selected as a language of choice (the choice were between php with a "php/java bridge" or scala), and in some specific cases the fact that it supports some web extjs components i need out of the box as well as mobile visual components, all of this but not for managing the smartclient components, the idea were to use Smart GWT for that, doing a better job than the php would do with the smartclient javascript edition.
So that does not looks like your proposition 1, more like number 2 (except that smartclient components are not alone on the client side) and 3 (except that, for the things mentionned, security, jquery components and so on, the php has to be the first point of contact of everything except smarclient gui components).

[Cloud]

I were just asking for your definition of the word "integrate" used on your FAQ licence page, is it something like too much asking ?

[Isomorphic]

Don't know if there's a language barrier, but the first line of the FAQ is:

Generally developers who call SmartClient APIs, use SmartClient development tools, or install the SmartClient SDK need to buy a license.

Everything else is "for example". This has been self-explanatory to everyone else.

As far as your technology choice, it does not make sense to mash together ExtJS, JQuery and SmartClient/SmartGWT in one application. That invites a huge number of interoperability issues and is a far more complex way to try to build an application than to simply go with any one of these technologies on it's own, using it according to it's best practices.

To get a glimpse of how deep the interoperability issues are, read, for starters, the SmartGWT FAQ on interoperability with core GWT widgets.

[Cloud]

Don't know if there's a language barrier, but the first line of the FAQ is:Generally developers who call SmartClient APIs, use SmartClient development tools, or install the SmartClient SDK need to buy a license.

This sentence is clear (except that "Generally" is subject to interpretations) and i would't asked a thing in the first place if there were not your following example which is not as clear and introduced doubts to my thinking so, as i didn't manage to have a direct answer to my question, i relied on this example to make an eventual answer easier for you and apparently, yes, there is, at least by half a language barrier on it.

Everything else is "for example". This has been self-explanatory to everyone else.

Yes and it has been also been understable that a sentence like
"Developers who integrate SmartClient user interfaces with these services will need SmartClient licenses" is also very clear but it's at the same time incomplete because my question is an extension of this, based on a need others did not have, so it's logic they didn't ask you for.

Like them, it's simple and clear i absolutly need licences but what i mean above by an "extension" to the example is "once i integrated SmartClient interfaces with these services and as my goal is to let internet users use my SmartClient GUI to choose their components by dragging them (which allow them to build a web space), do they need a licence ?"
It's as simple as that, nothing more. If i rely strictly on the first mentionned sentence, i would say no. If i rely on your example, i guess it's also "no" but the example miss some informations to have a clear answer. I agree that an another example would best fit my question context but didn't find the researched information in the FAQ.

========
About technicals details, let's forget jquery or extjs (even if i didn't suggest to use them all in the same page at the same time and whatever, iframe exist) and without diving into a big discussion around this, we could have the need of simple purpose components but complex by themselves and absent from the SmartClient components so it's natural to take them somewhere. For example, a "component" like ckEditor is not an abusive request for a project, hoping that's not a thing that invites a huge number of interoperability issues.

[Cloud]

Too bad we do not have a smooth communication and we can not exchange information about simple questions as SmartClient has important technical advantages compared to many software and it seems that the license has also substantial benefits compared to popular competitors. This should be highlighted rather than hidden

[Isomorphic]

Once again, everyone but you finds the policy quite clear. Please realize that the actual problem is your vague description of your use case. A site involving drag and drop portlets could have essentially any functionality and be implemented in many ways, with many possible extension mechanisms.

If you tell people "this site is using SmartClient Pro, you can type in code right here and use whatever SmartClient APIs you want" that means your end users need a license.

If the user has no idea they are working with SmartClient Pro, never need to read SmartClient documentation and don't use SmartClient APIs, and they are simply dragging widgets around, in this case, your end users clearly bear no resemblance to the definition of developer we provide.

Finally, iframes are even more of a disastrous choice than mixing together multiple frameworks in a single frame. This is covered in the docs.

[Cloud]

If the user has no idea they are working with SmartClient Pro, never need to read SmartClient documentation and don't use SmartClient APIs, and they are simply dragging widgets around, in this case, your end users clearly bear no resemblance to the definition of developer we provide.

Except that i clearly expressed my question is related to a multi domain context which is an important and unusual question for which i doubt your customers ask you often; so except this that's exactly what i explained and were asking for, thanks for this answer.

Whatever clear or not, this is a big SmartClient licence advantage over, let's say Extjs as its licence allows the same thing but with constraints : the end users can manipulate gui components in any ways, provide and change their content, choose skins but can't change colors by their own for example and i also doubt they allow end users a visual composition building on the frontend even if they don't use any api or ext tools.

I trust you when you say every single person understand all your informations as easily as to breath but i also see that SmartClient has very strong advantages on several levels over competition since many years but whatever its success, has always been at the same time extremely far less popular than many others (including ones far less good), for me it's some kind of a communication problem both in the content delivered as well as how it is delivered.

[Isomorphic]

Yes, the ExtJS license does have a very vague definition of developer which appears to encompass the user of any application that allows a moderate level of configuration. ExtJS has been called on this a number of times. They generally will tell you that if you are uncomfortable with the vague definition of developer, you should purchase the OEM license (with unspecified pricing).

As far as broad use, realize, SmartClient and SmartGWT target complex enterprise applications. In that space, it is a dominant technology, deployed somewhere in essentially every enterprise with a global presence. But there are many more simple websites and simple applications, so there's a bunch of visible activity around ExtJS. However, if you're focused on building complex business applications, a bunch of people asking how to add animation to a static website is noise you don't want to have to wade through.