J2EE features outside J2EE

[Thomas Taeger]

Hi all,
besides all other ilities in smaller companies and/or projects the "effordability" ("reasonability"?) usually is a major criterion.
Which technologies (JDBC, EJB, ...) and features covered by J2EE are available outside J2EE too?
Which ones of these (if any) may be used and delivered to the customer without licence fees?
Even in cases when a customer can not efford or at the moment does not want to spend money in expensive J2EE architecture, development and products I would like to prepare applications for J2EE as far as possible and justifiable.
A matrix would be great ...
I think there are two different answers needed, concerning
- J2EE licence fees and
- Non-J2EE-products supporting that feature or spec.
Thomas.

[Chris Mathews]

JBoss is an Open Source J2EE Application Server. For those organizations that can't see spending big bucks on an Application Server, JBoss is a great choice.

[Thomas Taeger]

Originally posted by Chris Mathews:
... Open Source J2EE Application Server ...

I am not working in a huge enterprise having their J2EE servers anyway.
So with reguard to a concrete project that might be opened in the next months I wunder: Who pays the J2EE licence fees to Sun? - even if the implementatioin itself is Open Source and therefore free of charge. Is "the Open Source community" the licencee? Am I? Is my customer the licencee if JBoss.org is not?
Remember the J2EE functionalities or J2EE server are/is intended to be used in a commercial project.
Because I can not imagine that one is allowed to use Sun's J2EE spec without fees, my original question was about the features that are covered by J2EE too but not only.
It can not be bad-mannered to care about licence fees in the Java world.
And I could never recommend to use JBoss in a commercial project as long as I can not assure my customer the legality of use. How did others handle this when using JBoss in commercial projects?
Sun on a telephone call just told me that it is included in the price of the server; the licencee had paid for it. But JBoss obviously might be the exception because there is no price but a licence.
In Mark Cade & Simon Roberts "SCEA for J2EE Tec" on page 14 the cmponents of J2EE are listed. The four types of containers supported and the required APIs are:
- Application Client container
- - J2SE, JMS, JNDI, RMI-IIOP, JDBC
- Applet container
- - J2SE
- Web container (servlet, JSP)
- - J2SE, JMS, JNDI, JTA, JavaMail, JAF, RMI-IIOP, JDBC
- EJB container
- - J2SE, JMS, JNDI, JTA, JavaMail, JAF, RMI-IIOP, JDBC

So which ones of these APIs are available and free of licence fees outside J2EE too?:
- J2SE: yes
- JMS ?
- JNDI ?
- JTA ?
- JavaMail ?
- JAF: yes
- RMI-IIOP ?
- JDBC ?
Or is my approach totally wrong? Why?
Not worth to think about fees because J2EE adresses huge enterprises only?
"Just preparing to switch to J2EE later" addresses an unrealistic scenario? Why?
If a customer asks me: Which are the criteria to buy a J2EE server and app, what is the critical mass? Where do I find the criteria and parameters? Just experience that only an "great old architect" has?
Thomas.