SpringSource responds to support criticism

Exclusive SpringSource is updating its controversial maintenance policy three weeks after encountering a barrage of criticism. The steward of the popular open-source Spring Framework has revealed that it plans a stripped-down version of the maintenance policy for small businesses. The company will also tag code in its Spring repository, in what appears to be an attempt to help identify code eligible for support under the maintenance agreement. The changes, understood to be imminent, do not represent a change of heart but are more intended to extend SpringSource's support coverage to a larger number of users. Separately, SpringSource is in talks to make its second ever acquisition, following January's purchase of Covalent Technologies, a leading contributor to Apache Software Foundation (ASF) open source projects. This time... [read full story]