SpringSource Open Source Project Support Policy

The purpose of this document is to outline SpringSource’s support policies for open source projects.

SpringSource Project Support includes:

Technical assistance on and around the software; including installation, configuration, integration and, when purchased by the customer, developer guidance and recommendations on usage of the project

Source code patches for Severity Level 1 , Severity Level 2  software bugs and Security Vulnerabilities

Access to Customer Portal for software downloads, technical content and knowledge base

SpringSource Project Version Support

SpringSource supports multiple versions, and frequently, multiple branches of an open source project.  There are three parameters for a project version that determines if SpringSource will provide support for it:

1. The version is deemed to be “production ready” and stable by SpringSource developers and support staff
2. The version is the current release by the open source project or it is one of the prior two releases to the current one
3. The project version is being used in production by a significant number of enterprises and customers

If the open source project meets the parameters above, SpringSource will provide support as defined in this document for no less than 12 months for each maintenance version.  Note, however, that support for a major branch – like Spring Framework 2.0.x or Apache Tomcat 5.5.x – will be provided for no less than three years from the time it is made available.  Below are some project and version examples.

Support for Apache Tomcat from SpringSource covers three branches – Tomcat 4.1.x, 5.5.x and 6.0.x – and three maintenance versions of each of those branches.  This means that a customer can receive full support for Tomcat 4.1.36, 4.1.37, and 4.1.39 (note that 4.1.38 is not supported due to its instability).  Similarly for Apache HTTPd, customers can receive support for three branches – HTTPd 1.3.x, 2.0.x and 2.2.x – and three maintenance versions for each.  Both Apache Tomcat 4.1.x and HTTPd 1.3.x are more than 5 years old and they are still fully supported by SpringSource.

SpringSource will provide limited support for maintenance versions of open source projects that fall outside of the parameters detailed here, but this support will consist of technical assistance only.  This means that any software bugs and/or security vulnerabilities encountered will not be addressed.  In the event that one occurs in a “limited support” maintenance version, the customer will need to update/upgrade the software to a fully supported version in order to receive any patches from SpringSource.

Project Support End-of-Life

As noted in this document, SpringSource will support major releases (or branches) of the open source project for a minimum of 3 years and maintenance versions for no less than 12 months.  SpringSource will announce the end-of-life (EOL) of a project’s major version or branch 12 months before support for it actually expires.  Notices will be posted on the Customer Portal in the support section.  EOL support for maintenance versions will not be announced by SpringSource, however, details on the currently supported maintenance versions is kept up to date on the support pages.
 

 ¹Severity Level 1- An error in the software which severely affects the overall production performance of the software’s function or process, such that a production system is non-functional and no procedural work-around exists.
  ²Severity Level 2 - An error in the software which materially affects the overall production performance of the software’s function or process so that the function or process is noticeably impaired, but where business operations continue.