If your enterprise has installed any Oracle applications (including Hyperion, Siebel, PeopleSoft, etc.), the following piece of information is important and should be kept in mind.
Many Oracle applications come bundled with the following restricted use licenses:
• Oracle Database Enterprise Edition; and
• Oracle Internet Application Server Enterprise Edition
‘Restricted use’ means you cannot modify, alter, or otherwise change these underlying products. The intent of restricted use is that you employ -and deploy – these products “as is” and straight “out of the box” like you would, say, the home accounting/personal finances software product, Quicken.
Some enterprises do just fine with “out of the box” functionality and don’t need to modify what’s lying underneath. But other enterprises require ever more robustness. Accordingly, they change and otherwise modify the underlying stuff, which from the Oracle software license standpoint includes forms, reports, workbooks and, of course, the database. Enterprises then have to accept that in modifying they create a new/additional Oracle licensing requirement that moves the enterprise beyond the restricted use entitlement and into the ‘full use’ realm, which in turn creates a need to ‘true-up’ or otherwise necessitate an additional license purchase.