No, the Red Hat Universal Base Images and all associated content can be used for development and deployment without the need for a Red Hat subscription. However, for a fully supported operational experience and access to an expanded list of non-UBI tools, containers built on UBI must be deployed on a Red Hat platform such as OpenShift or RHEL.
Accessing non-UBI content does require a Red Hat subscription.
https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/introducing-red-hat-universal...
https://developers.redhat.com/articles/ubi-faq#introduction
re: licensing, the FAQ says:
No, the Red Hat Universal Base Images and all associated content can be used for development and deployment without the need for a Red Hat subscription. However, for a fully supported operational experience and access to an expanded list of non-UBI tools, containers built on UBI must be deployed on a Red Hat platform such as OpenShift or RHEL.Accessing non-UBI content does require a Red Hat subscription.