Licensing question: Microsoft Excel ODBC driver and MDAC 2.8

[Marc Missire]

Hi,

First off, I apologize if this isn't the proper group for this
question; if it isn't, I'd certainly appreciate any pointers to the
right place.

I am working on a web application (in Java) which needs to create
Excel files. Initially, it used Apache's POI toolkit for this. That
product holds the entire spreadsheet in memory before writing it to
disk, and is unsuitable for creating large spreadsheets.

The Microsoft Excel ODBC driver seems to work nicely. It can be
accessed from Java easily enough, via the JDBC-ODBC Bridge (a part of
Sun's JDK). It can create large Excel files, and not have a large
memory footprint while doing so.

However, I have a question about licensing and am having trouble
finding the information on Microsoft's web site.

Can this driver legally be used in a web application written in Java?
It relies on Microsoft MDAC, which is installed with Windows 2k. The
driver itself is installed with Excel 2000, but is also downloadable
from Microsoft (as part of a Microsoft JET service pack). But I worry
that I can't use it in a Java-based web application, without paying
various license fees.

Does anyone know? I think it's the JET component that one might have
to pay for.

 

[Jamie Collins]

(e-mail address removed) (Marc Missire) wrote ...

Hi,

First off, I apologize if this isn't the proper group for this
question; if it isn't, I'd certainly appreciate any pointers to the
right place.

I am working on a web application (in Java) which needs to create
Excel files. Initially, it used Apache's POI toolkit for this. That
product holds the entire spreadsheet in memory before writing it to
disk, and is unsuitable for creating large spreadsheets.

The Microsoft Excel ODBC driver seems to work nicely. It can be
accessed from Java easily enough, via the JDBC-ODBC Bridge (a part of
Sun's JDK). It can create large Excel files, and not have a large
memory footprint while doing so.

However, I have a question about licensing and am having trouble
finding the information on Microsoft's web site.

Can this driver legally be used in a web application written in Java?
It relies on Microsoft MDAC, which is installed with Windows 2k. The
driver itself is installed with Excel 2000, but is also downloadable
from Microsoft (as part of a Microsoft JET service pack). But I worry
that I can't use it in a Java-based web application, without paying
various license fees.

Does anyone know? I think it's the JET component that one might have
to pay for.

(e-mail address removed) (Marc Missire) wrote ...

Hi,

First off, I apologize if this isn't the proper group for this
question; if it isn't, I'd certainly appreciate any pointers to the
right place.

I am working on a web application (in Java) which needs to create
Excel files. Initially, it used Apache's POI toolkit for this. That
product holds the entire spreadsheet in memory before writing it to
disk, and is unsuitable for creating large spreadsheets.

The Microsoft Excel ODBC driver seems to work nicely. It can be
accessed from Java easily enough, via the JDBC-ODBC Bridge (a part of
Sun's JDK). It can create large Excel files, and not have a large
memory footprint while doing so.

However, I have a question about licensing and am having trouble
finding the information on Microsoft's web site.

Can this driver legally be used in a web application written in Java?
It relies on Microsoft MDAC, which is installed with Windows 2k. The
driver itself is installed with Excel 2000, but is also downloadable
from Microsoft (as part of a Microsoft JET service pack). But I worry
that I can't use it in a Java-based web application, without paying
various license fees.

Does anyone know? I think it's the JET component that one might have
to pay for.

Rather than give advice, I'll merely guess that you can't distribute
Jet or its components but your clients could download it if it is made
available by MS. I'm fairly sure the .mdb Jet database format is
freely distributable e.g. if you have MDAC you can use and distribute
a Jet database created using ADO without requiring a MS application
such as MS Access. However, I noticed the license agreement of a
recent VB.NET installation forbade its use to write a MS Access-like
front end for Jet. I have no similar information relating to the.xls
format.

Jamie.

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