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WebObjects Now Free With Tiger

Posted by Zonk on from the good-things-for-your-stocking dept.

Reverberant writes "Macworld reports that has Apple released WebObjects as a free application. From $50,000 to free, the software used to build the iTunes Music Store and Dell's original online store is now available for free to Tiger users via Xcode 2.1." From the article: " The software has historical importance to Apple-watchers: it was originally released in March 1996 - but not by Apple. In fact, WebObjects was developed by NeXT Computer and became Apple's software only when that company acquired Steve Jobs' second computer company later that year. While not software on the tip of every Mac users tongue, WebObjects sits behind several significant implementations - the most famous current example being Apple's iTunes Music Store."

1 of 296 comments (clear)

  1. Free if you buy a MacOS X Server! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The article quoted only explains the WebObjects DEVELOPMENT environment.

    While Apple did give you free WebObjects 5.3 Development on every XCode 2.1, you have to buy a MacOS X Tiger Server to run the applications. Yes, you can still build a WAR file to deploy the application on Tomcat/JBoss/Jetty but you still need the server license to deploy your applications.

    The old way (pay $699usd, you get development environment on Mac and Windows, plus deployment on any JVM):
    You can deploy WebObjects 5.0 to 5.2.4 applications on any Windows, Linux, Solaris, MacOS X and even FreeBSD with a compliant JVM. In short, WebObjects 5.0 - 5.2.4, you spent $699 usd to buy from Apple (I bought my copy $88 usd from eBay. Apple used to has student developer discount for $99 usd).

    The New Way ("Free development license, but $$$$ on each deployment license from Tiger server):
    Enough said, starting from 5.3, you've to buy the license for each deployment license.

    Anyway I'm pissed because I like to write apps on my Powerbook, and deploy the apps to my Debian Linux server running Apache with mod_webobjects adaptor. I would never switch to a Apple machine running Tiger Server.

    Look I love WebObjects... with all the Direct To Web and the EOF goodies, it runs circles around Ruby on Rails and the EJB/JDO toys... but I felt being sold by Apple this time.

    -cocoa ninja