Visual Studio Team System – pricing and other thoughts…

Acabo de leer un post muy interesante de Eric Sink, en el cual explica hacia adonde está segmentado el mercado para VSTS y cuales son las implicaciones de esto.

Algo que me pareció muy interesante y es muy común es el licenciamiento de MSDN Universal. Pongo este fragmento del post:

Sharing

Many companies and teams buy a single subscription and share it among all their developers.  This form of piracy is rampant.  Some folks probably even think it’s legal.  It’s not.

We encounter this all the time when talking to people about our own products. 

User:  «Why should I buy Vault when SourceSafe is free?» 

SourceGear:  «Why do you think SourceSafe is free?»

User:  «Because it’s on the MSDN discs.»

If you have ten developers using Visual Studio, you’re supposed to have ten subscriptions to MSDN Universal.  That’s the way it works.

Developer licenses

Many people use «developer licenses» outside their intended use.  This one is even more subtle.  The discs in your MSDN subscription contain lots of things which are licensed for development purposes only.  I suppose only Microsoft can explain exactly what this means, but I have understood it like this: 

• I can use SQL Server Developer Edition when I am developing an application which uses SQL Server.  However, if I need SQL Server for my company’s accounting system, I need to buy a full license elsewhere.
• I can use Windows Server 2003 for development and testing, but if I want to host my company’s online store, I need to buy a full license elsewhere.  
• I can use Microsoft Office from my MSDN disc if I am developing an Excel plugin.  However, if I need Word to edit my business plan, I need to buy a full license elsewhere.   (Oops!  Bad example.  This is incorrect.)

Estoy de acuerdo con esto. Todos caemos en este tipo de piratería sin pensarlo… y el que todos lo hagan no quiere decir que es válido…

Cheers! xD