The launch of Waltham, Massachusetts-based Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 saw the company replace JBoss AS with the Apache Geronimo project as the default Java application server.

In a statement, Novell’s director of marketing for Linux and open platform solutions, Justin Steinman, blamed a change of licensing terms following JBoss’s acquisition by Linux rival Red Hat.

JBoss changed some of its license terms, which made it difficult to include JBoss in SUSE Linux Enterprise 10, he said, while maintaining that SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 will continue to support JBoss, and Novell will continue to provide technical support for JBoss as per our existing contract with JBoss.

However, speaking to Computer Business Review, JBoss’s chief technology officer, Sacha Labourey, denied that any change of licensing terms has taken place. I was surprised as well, he said. To be frank, there is no change in the license. There is no change for us, no change in the business relationship as well.

Although Novell’s adoption of Geronimo was expected following the announcement in December 2005 of a strategic agreement with fellow Geronimo-backer IBM, the omission of JBoss was not expected.

Novell had included JBoss 3.2.3 in both SLES 9 and Novell Linux Desktop 9, and in April maintained that it would continue to work with JBoss despite its acquisition by Red Hat. We have a contract in place with JBoss and we plan to continue to honor that contract, said Novell spokesperson Bruce Lowry at the time.

Prior to Red Hat’s acquisition of the Java middleware vendor, Novell that was closer to JBoss than Red Hat, having begun to offer support for the JBoss Application Server in July 2004 before ditching its own exteNd Application Server in favor of JBoss AS in August 2004.

Labourey was unable to offer an explanation for Novell’s change of heart but did welcome the fact that Novell will continue to support JBoss open source middleware on SUSE Linux Enterprise. Supporting customers is an important point. I am not sure that customers just use the software provided in the distribution, he said. I’m not sue this will impact us this much.

He also maintained that despite its new role as a division of Red Hat, there is no change in JBoss’s commitment to heterogeneous environments. The change here is mostly of the Red Hat side, he explained. We have said to those guys ‘we need to get support for Windows, Novell SUSE , HP-UX’ et cetera, he said.

Whatever is behind Novell’s decision to relegate JBoss the company is clearly pinning its hopes on Geronimo offering a serious alternative to the JBoss application server. There are going to be two major open source Java platforms in the future: one will be JBoss, and the other will be Geronimo, said Steinman.

Although Geronimo and JBoss AS are clearly competitive technologies, Labourey said that he did not expect Geronimo to mount a serious challenge. At this point it’s a non-issue, he said, point out that Geronimo is at version 1.1 while JBoss AS is preparing for version 5.0.

Labourey also drew comparisons between Novell’s strategy and that previously taken by Red Hat, which previously tried to champion ObjectWeb’s JOnAS open source application server. What Red Hat did in the past is precisely what drives [Novell and IBM] to Geronimo, he said. Trying to use the brand to pick up a second player and grow it to be the leader.

Red Hat’s acquisition of JBoss saw Red Hat effectively admit that it had failed in that strategy, and Labourey said the challenge would be similarly difficult for Novell.