Community Content on the SAP API Business Hub

Announcing the launch of Apache 2.0 licensed content on the SAP API Business Hub for use in consulting projects and custom development projects.

What does community content mean?

Apache 2.0. is an open-source license. This means that the user of Apache 2.0 licensed content enjoys the four degrees of open-source freedoms.

• Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose.
• Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works and change it.
• Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute copies, so you can help others.
• Freedom 3: The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others

For standard content the terms of use on the SAP API Business Hub don’t allow the last two freedoms (or the last 3 if you consider configure-only integration packages) but you will be able to do just that with community content. In the first tranche, all community content will be integration packages.

Why community content?

The SAP API Business Hub has very stringent governance policies to allow for stress free consumption by our customers. However, this also means that many scenarios go unpublished for the lack of sponsors to underwrite the support and maintenance. We believe here lies a huge untapped potential for our partners and customers.

The integration ecosystem for SAP Cloud Integration today productively deploys and maintains (hundreds of thousands) custom developed integration flows, most of them implement similar scenarios which means a lot of duplicate effort and missed business opportunities.  The community content project intends to deliver the re-usable parts of popular custom developed scenarios, available for you to customise further. This community content is free to use, modify, and redistribute.

How will this work?

SAP will publish integration packages licensed under Apache 2.0 on the SAP API Business Hub and the integration GitHub repository simultaneously. The listing on SAP API Business Hub and Git Hub will be interlinked.

The community content on SAP API Business Hub will have all the ease of discovery and consumption that the site has to offer while the GitHub repo will offer all the 4 degrees of freedom that are required of open source.

SAP will not maintain the community content, which will be delivered “as is,” however, every single community integration package will conform to all SAP API Business Hub standards and SAP Cloud Integration best practices on the day it is published. Partners and customers can extend, and bug fix the community content on the GitHub repository.

What are the opportunities with community integration packages?

For customers,

• A great starting point for your custom-built scenario with easy discovery and consumption to get started.

For partners,

• Freedom 3 (redistribute) means you can put up a supported version of a community integration package on the SAP Store or the SAP API Business Hub [see Partners reach your target audience better with SAP API Business Hub]

For consultants

• The GitHub repo is open for your contributions; you can demonstrate your expertise in an area for the world to see.

Where to get started?

Head to the community section of the SAP API Business Hub.