Clarity on licensing requirements

DSAG and SAP have agreed that IT scenarios involving third-party providers (SAP NetWeaver Foundation for 3rd Party Applications) are only subject to licensing if SAP systems such as SAP NetWeaver are used as a platform for business applications.

In contrast, third-party solutions that are integrated into SAP solutions via interfaces but do not use SAP NetWeaver as a platform are now license-free. This applies, for example, to mobile applications and scanners.

"This has now created clear relationships for customers as to what licenses are and are not for in third-party scenarios"

explains Andreas Oczko, DSAG Board Member Operations/Service & Support.

No licenses for customized reports

In addition, DSAG and SAP have agreed for the benefit of users that in future no license fees will be incurred when using the corresponding SAP NetWeaver platform if only the existing source code of the SAP software or the metadata such as documents, data or files are changed.

For example, license-free remains if only existing functionality of the SAP software is pronounced, improved or changed and no new and independent functionality is added.

This means that no licenses would be required for new customer-specific reports on existing database tables. It is also license-free if application programming interfaces (APIs) are used and new and independent functions are added via them that do not access database information, for example in warehouse optimization, which only communicates with the SAP application at application level. The configuration of SAP software in terms of customer-specific settings also does not require licenses.

The previous regulations were in part incomplete, misleading or imprecise. With the current new regulation, it has now been clarified, for example, that partner add-ons are also treated as customer developments.

Andreas Oczko considers the SAP NetWeaver Runtime, which is included in the normal SAP licenses, to be sufficient for the scenarios listed. For Andreas Oczko, the new regulation of the licensing obligation for third-party scenarios is a first, important success in the area of software licensing.