Greetings,
We are building a SaaS product using ABP Commercial. We will sell subscriptions to multiple end-user organizations, both cloud-hosted and on-premise. Our customers will only use the application, not access ABP source code or development tools. Is this permitted under the Business/Enterprise license? What conditions will apply when license expire ? Do you have the authority to audit our customers too for ABP license ?
Regards,
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Hi,
Yes, building your own SaaS product on top of ABP Commercial and selling it to multiple end-user organizations, cloud-hosted or on-premise, is a supported scenario under your Business license (same for Enterprise). The license is granted per developer, not per end user, customer organization, or deployment, so the number of customers and servers your application runs on isn't what's licensed.
The thing to keep in mind is what the license covers: the ABP framework itself (the PRO packages, source code, templates, tools, and modules). The application you build on top of it is your own product. So:
- Allowed: deploying or delivering your application to your customers to run, both cloud and on-premise. This includes shipping the compiled ABP runtime DLLs your application needs to run, since your customers receive your application to use, not ABP as a framework to develop with.
- Not allowed: giving a third party the ABP Commercial packages, source code, templates, tools, or modules so they can use them as a development framework, reuse them in their own projects, sublicense them, or publish them as open source.
Based on what you described (your end users only use your application and never get ABP itself as a development framework), this is the normal, intended use of ABP Commercial.
When the license expires
ABP licenses are perpetual. Your already-built applications keep running and you can keep developing them with the ABP packages and code you already have, no renewal required. What changes after expiration:
- You can't create new projects from the PRO startup templates (existing projects keep working).
- PRO modules/themes already in your solution keep working, but you can't download/install new ones with the expired license, and you only get updates within your current MINOR version (e.g. on v12.0.x you still get 12.0.x patches, but not 12.1.0 or 13.x).
- You can't use ABP Suite, and you lose the PRO features of ABP Studio (the Community Edition keeps working).
- Premium support ends.
Renewing restores all of these and adds another year to your expiry date.
About auditing
The inspection right in the license agreement is about your use as the license holder, your facilities, and your records, to verify your compliance with the license (for example, the number of developer seats in use). Your end customers receive your application to use, not ABP as a licensed development framework, so the inspection right is directed at you, not at them.
Thanks
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