AFAIK a developer CAN use the telerik controls directly, provided that they have a correct Telerik license for development. Such a license is included with DNN PE
The table below shows the development and deployment scenarios and the restrictions that should be observed:
Developer Scenario |
Community Edition Deployment |
Professional Edition Deployment |
Community Edition Developer creates Module using "wrappers" |
Allowed |
Allowed |
Commercial Edition Developer creates Module using "wrappers" |
Allowed |
Allowed |
Community Edition Developer creates Module using Telerik RadControls directly |
Not Allowed* |
Not Allowed*.
Even though you are running on Commercial Edition, the original developer do not have rights to develop the Module using Telerik RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX directly (because they were using Community Edition) |
Commercial Edition Developer creates Module using Telerik RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX directly |
Allowed.
The original developer had rights to develop using Telerik directly (through their Commercial Edition license) so usage of the Module is allowed. |
Allowed |
Developer who has purchased a valid Telerik Developer License creates a Module using Telerik RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX directly |
Allowed.
If a developer purchased a valid dev license from Telerik, there are no restrictions on usage. However the developer is not allowed to redistribute the Telerik DLLs with their Module package - they need to exclude it and rely on the DLLs which exists in the DotNetNuke framework. |
Allowed |
*unless you are an existing Telerik customer and hold a RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX license