A first concession

In August 2017, there was a publication on this in the DSAG network. Among other things, it was about the new regulation of the licensing obligation for third-party scenarios (SAP NetWeaver Foundation for 3rd Party Applications). There was even talk of a milestone.

Access via APIs no longer subject to licensing

In it, DSAG clarified, among other things, that the code from customers or third-party providers must run on the Abap or Java stack for there to be any claim at all on the part of SAP.

Why was this important?

The PKLs up to 2015/4 always referred to runtime environments. However, SAP changed this in PKL 2016/2. It suddenly stated that applications that access the data in the SAP tables via APIs also require an additional "SAP NetWeaver Foundation For Third Party Application" license, which meant a significant deterioration of the previous requirements.

This has now been reversed. In addition, DSAG announced that SAP is clarifying internally whether the license requirement should also no longer exist in the future for applications that are used purely for system administration, system monitoring or system management.

In the DSAG NWF explanations 2017, it is stated under point 2.2: "Other cases excluded from the licensing obligation": Furthermore, SAP currently interprets the licensing obligation for NWF TPA in such a way that such applications (from third parties/customers) that serve purely for system administration, system monitoring and or system management do not trigger a licensing obligation for NWF TPA.

The implementation of this interpretation still needs to be clarified internally at SAP." In the meantime, SAP has clarified this point internally and included it under point 5.13 in the current PKL 2017/4.

SAP requires this license from its customers if they want to run their own developments (add-ons) or third-party software on the NetWeaver runtime environment.

As of today, there are two exceptions to this:

Firstly, the in-house developments (add-ons) or the third-party software do not access information (data) in the SAP tables (database).

Second: Add-ons and third-party software that contain functionality for system administration, monitoring and management only. [New since PKL 2017/4]

The current change in PKL 2017/4 is SAP's first real concession in this matter. What does this change mean for SAP customers? The terms system administration, system monitoring and system management are all part of the SAP Basis area of responsibility.

This includes all third-party software for identity management, authorization management, security management, license management, monitoring software and SAP system copies.

Still far from the best solution for customers

We very much welcome this development, although we still believe that SAP's entire claim was and is unlawful. By the end of 2018, SAP has announced that it will make further changes in this regard.

The ideal situation would be for SAP to remove its requirements from the PKL altogether. However, after three years of discussion by now, we don't really believe this will happen.

To get rid of the issue once and for all, a simple and cost-effective solution would be practicable for all SAP customers. Our proposal: a one-time flat rate of 16,000 euros, as was the case back then with the NetWeaver rollout.

In return, all SAP customers were to be given the unrestricted right to use non-SAP software - including access to the data in SAP application tables - on the SAP runtime environment.