Re: Licensing question: Microsoft Excel ODBC driver and MDAC 2.8

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From: Jamie Collins (jamiecollins_at_xsmail.com)
Date: 09/16/04 

Date: 16 Sep 2004 03:26:24 -0700

mmissire@hotmail.com (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 spread*** 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.

mmissire@hotmail.com (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 spread*** 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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