I currently use express version of Visual Studio 2013, and I am quite satisfied with it. But I now feel the need to use visual studio ultimate version (too big expectations as it is out of my budget)
So, I came across a dealer who claims that he can give me a pirated version of visual studio ultimate 2013 for considerably low price and now I consider what will be the disadvantages of it? In my country (India) this type of thing is popular. So, my question is does microsoft use some kind of system with which it will recognize if the software or product which is developed with visual studio using a pirated copy of visual studio?
My decision totally depends from the answers which I get from you.
Again: Is it recognizable if I use pirated visual studio for developing applications? Be specific.
Thanks, in advance.
While there are no shortage of people who will lecture you on the evils of pirated software... from the unknown quality (you don't know if it contains viruses or malware) to the ethical and legal issues (yes, its illegal, even if you are unlikely to get "caught" even in your country).
There are better alternatives, however. Microsoft has a number of programs in which you can get very cheap or even free software if you meet certain conditions. For instance, the DreamSpark program gives you access to commercial versions of Visual Studio and other software for free if you are a student. It's not the Ultimate version, but it's the Professional Version.
There is also the Microsoft Student Developer Program.
If you own your own business, and meet certain requirements, there is also the BizSpark and WebsiteSpark programs. This does give you Ultimate access, and if you have your own business (or know someone who does and is willing to foster your membership) then this is a great program. You get it all for 3 years for no cost.
Finally, there are discounts you can get as well from various sources, and you might check with your local Microsoft offices. There is also the ActionPack and ActionPack Development & Design programs, again you have to have a business.. but you can probably find a way to make that work if you're creative, and legal and ethical, and its software you can trust.
And of course, there is the Community Edition of Visual Studio, which is a fully featured version of VS and free for anyone who isn't a large business.
microsoft sells licenses to use their software; to be legitimate, U should purchase a license from them. If, OTOH, U want software for which U don't have to pay (and U want to be legitimate), try an open source compiler, like the MinGW compiler, or the C# scripting engine CS-Script, which works with the CLR of .NET, and which can also generate executables. i'm not wild about the MS licensing model, because if there's an error in their code, i can't do anything about it, but i think it's best to respect it, if for no other reason than to keep them off your back.
if U want to violate the model, which, while admittedly stupid, is their choice and also backed up by the law in my country, U'll get no help from me.
Related
What's missing in Visual Studio Community 2015? They say it's full-featured and free, but if that's the case, then why do/will they still sell Visual Studio Ultimate 2015 or Visual Studio Enterprise 2015 for 6 grand?
Something is missing in the Community preview, right? And why is it called 'Community'? My code won't be synced across your devices like the new Windows 10 update system is, will it? (Kind of joking about that last part, and kind of not, too).
There are 2 major differences.
Technical
Licensing
Technical, there are 3 major differences:
First and foremost, Community doesn't have TFS support.
You'll just have to use git (arguable whether this constitutes a disadvantage or whether this actually is a good thing).
Note: This is what MS wrote. Actually, you can check-in&out with TFS as normal, if you have a TFS server in the network. You just cannot use Visual Studio as TFS SERVER.
Second, VS Community is severely limited in its testing capability.
Only unit tests. No Performance tests, no load tests, no performance profiling.
Third, VS Community's ability to create Virtual Environments has been severely cut.
On the other hand, syntax highlighting, IntelliSense, Step-Through debugging, GoTo-Definition, Git-Integration and Build/Publish are really all the features I need, and I guess that applies to a lot of developers.
For all other things, there are tools that do the same job faster, better and cheaper.
If you, like me, anyway use git, do unit testing with NUnit, and use Java-Tools to do Load-Testing on Linux plus TeamCity for CI, VS Community is more than sufficient, technically speaking.
Licensing:
A) If you're an individual developer (no enterprise, no organization), no difference (AFAIK), you can use CommunityEdition like you'd use the paid edition (as long as you don't do subcontracting)
B) You can use CommunityEdition freely for OpenSource (OSI) projects
C) If you're an educational insitution, you can use CommunityEdition freely (for education/classroom use)
D) If you're an enterprise with 250 PCs or users or more than one million US dollars in revenue (including subsidiaries), you are NOT ALLOWED to use CommunityEdition.
E) If you're not an enterprise as defined above, and don't do OSI or education, but are an "enterprise"/organization, with 5 or less concurrent (VS) developers, you can use VS Community freely (but only if you're the owner of the software and sell it, not if you're a subcontractor creating software for a larger enterprise, software which in the end the enterprise will own), otherwise you need a paid edition.
The above does not consitute legal advise.
See also:
https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/262916/understanding-visual-studio-community-edition-license
Check the following: https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/compare/
Visual studio community is free version for students and other academics, individual developers, open-source projects, and small non-enterprise teams (see "Usage" section at bottom of linked page). While VSUltimate is for companies. You also get more things with paid versions!
Visual Studio Community is same (almost) as professional edition. What differs is that VS community do not have TFS features, and the licensing is different. As stated by #Stefan.
The different versions on VS are compared here -
https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/compare-visual-studio-2015-products-vs
All these answers are partially wrong.
Microsoft has clarified that Community is for ANY USE as long as your revenue is under $1 Million US dollars. That is literally the only difference between Pro and Community. Corporate or free or not, irrelevant.
Even the lack of TFS support is not true. I can verify it is present and works perfectly.
EDIT: Here is an MSDN post regarding the $1M limit: MSDN (hint: it's in the VS 2017 license)
EDIT: Even over the revenue limit, open source is still free.
I am the sole .net developer for a small company. My projects span many .net technologies including WinForms, WPF, SQL, XNA, Linq, WCF, WTF?, and others.
I struggle staying on top of all these projects so I'm looking to make my life easier with the release of VS2010. Without a mentor I rely heavily on StackOverflow and whatever else Google comes up with. Should I convince my company to get an edition with an MSDN subscription? Is it one of those things where once you have it, you can't imagine life without it?
What about the source control that comes with VS2010, do you all find it better than an SVN server?
We're looking to hire another programmer this year, would I be best off getting a Team edition of VS2010 to be best prepared for that hire?
Thanks!
If you want "Intellitrace" (aka "historical debugging") you'll need Ultimate.
Similarly Premium and Professional incrementally have fewer features. Any other these, or some combination could be the deciding factor. There is a comparison on the product pages.
Also, consider the value of an MSDN Subscription, getting you access to OSs, servers and tools for development and test (and one instance of Office for general use).
Even as a sole developer you should still be using source control (unless it is VSS :-)), whether SVN, GIT, TFS, ... all the paid editions will give you integration. ALM (application lifecycle management) like TFS will do source code control (SCM or VCS) as well as work item tracking (defects, feastrues) and much more. VS paid editions + MSDN include TFS (and you can run it on a Workstation -- server OS only no longer).
In my opinion if you are being employed professionally as a developer in the MS platform, VS Pro + MSDN is a minimum (otherwise ask yourself about the standard of employment), and really it should be VS Ultimate + MSDN. Compare the cost of employing you with the cost of the subscription (especially once on a VL program -- and you only need a single MSDN subscription to qualify for VL).
Visual Studio is a great product and I use it daily. Our level of MSDN subscription is Premium. This opens most of the doors in the MSDN library and I can't say I'm missing Ultimate. When Visual Studio was still RC and Beta we were developing in it (Ultimate) and things like IntelliTrace were nice to have features but were definitely not make or break.
I would advise against getting Visual Studio Premium because it is lacking in some of the features that I use extensively such as Code Coverage and static code analysis.
I'd have to say I can't imagine life without an MSDN subscription. It would be impossible to develop (and test) on the range of platforms necessary.
As for the source repositories we have been using TFS 2010 for the last few months and found that the seamless integration with Visual Studio is the huge selling point. The ability to check-in and out is only one aspect of the system. The ability to create build definitions, view build history and manage work items, all through the IDE, saves so much time.
If price becomes a problem there are always alternatives to Microsoft. If you want to use SVN there are SVN plugins such as VisualSVN and ankhsvn. You could then use something like CruiseControl.Net for builds.
Working as a single developer or in a small team I've usually found that any version of VS (except for Express) is ok, the Ultimate version do have some interesting things, but not anything essential for many developers.
I'd suggest that you (or your boss) look at the Microsoft Action Pack. They've got a new one for developers where you'll get 3 VS Pro licenses plus a bunch of OS and Server licenses (some of them only for development but some of them are valid for any employee I think).
In England it seems to be about £290 per year with the 15% discount that's on right now, so very cheap for what you get. There are some requirements, but if you develop software using MS Software you probably have a fairly high chance of qualifying:
https://partner.microsoft.com/40132997
Friend of mine just established own coding company. They wanted create professional application written in .NET.
Now he on the stage buying software. We have discussed what VS version is absolutely minimum for this purposes.
There are lot of different version Professional / Team Suite / Team Developer ...
I wonder what you recommend?
Ideally: less (possible) cost but not short-sightedness? Would be possible base on only VS Professional Edition?
I forgot to add that friend's company is partially refunded by EU. So it would be better to him spend more money at start then pay for upgrade in future. So, looking rather for target solution.
We have looked at comparison matrix obviously. We couldn't find strong arguments for "Team" edition. Believe most of "Team" features can be supplemented by 3rd parity tools (nUnit, Subversion, Resharper) what he used to use anyway...
If VS Professional would be selected - GDR will be the one think we noticed really missing in that approach.
Definitely check out Microsoft BizSpark. For next to nothing Microsoft will provide a software startup with Visual Studio, SQL Server, and other dev tools. I would also say that the edition doesn't matter as much as what comes with it. Look at the feature matrices of the various VS packages and figure out what you need. You can always upgrade later. I've done a lot of contract work with VS Express and there are no licensing restrictions on what you do with the software you build. Start small, and buy as necessary.
I suggest a look at the Visual Studio Editions comparison sheet and just check what you need. Note that from a technical perspective, you are not locked if you choose to start with a smaller edition.
At least Pro - given the description above you want to look at the BizSpark programme. If you don't/can't go down that route then you should be looking at an MSDN sub to at least the VS Pro level.
I would start with the Express Editions and upgrade to another edition if you miss functionallity (e.g. Add-Ins like Resharper; they cannot be used in the express edition). Upgrading is no problem since you can use your projects in all editions.
My dev environment now consists of:
vc# express / v web dev express
NUnit
Tortoise for Subversion
SqlYog for MySql
Custom automated copy/paste deployment
I'd like to use:
TestDriven.NET (looked at pex too and it seems interesting)
VisualSVN or AnkhSVN
Not sure if VS will have integrated control of mysql.
Deployment projects
Just to make things quicker and easier on myself... but is it worth it to pay out the $250 for a VS license (note: my employer is footing the bill, but try not to let that alter your judgement too much).
Visual Studio 2008 Standard has everything a traditional developer needs.
I use Professional at work and Standard at home (which I bought with the Expression Studio package - damn good deal). Unless you're wanting multi-process stuff, Std is perfectly adequate. I have mine using Silverlight Tools, and it "talks to" Blend and VisualSVN (MUCH better than AnkhSVN) perfectly well. It works with database servers (but doesn't debug MS-SQL), I imagine you'd have to get a MySQL provider for this element to work - which I guess you'd need anyway if you're working in MySQL on .NET.
Since your employer is paying for it, I assume this is for business purposes. Therefore, the question is whether you're more valuable to him with VS 2008 standard or $250?
Assuming you're spending a lot of time developing, the answer is almost certainly yes. If you make $50,000 a year, spend half your time developing, and the standard version improves your efficiency by 1%, that's a one-year break-even. (Actually better than that; if you make $50K a year you cost your employer more like $70K-$100K, depending on circumstances and accounting.)
It's almost always worthwhile to buy good tools for your workers, and software development tools are usually very inexpensive compared to software tools for other professions.
If you were developing at home, it would be a more difficult and subjective question, but since you're programming to generate revenue for somebody it's a question of dollars, and the dollars are overwhelmingly in favor of spending the money.
Bear in mind that you can buy 'upgrade' editions of VS and upgrade from the Express versions (or even Eclipse). So the list price you'd be looking at is USD199, with the real price more like USD160.
Given that it's a price vs features trade-off, this might be useful.
My personal advice would be not to mess about with toy freebie editions if you're trying to earn money for yourself or anyone else.
It depends on the application you'll create. The express edition won't let you combine different projects of different type in one solution. With a Visual Studio Professional you'll be able to debug an assembly from a C# class with another project within your web application.
If your project need only to be in one type of language than express is ok.
But I agree, if you will make money, a license is the way to go.
Yes. Without at least VS Standard, you can't use all the cool add-ins that make Visual Studio so powerful.
The express versions also do not allow you to create windows services - I changed to professional and now I can do that. You can still do it in express, however, you have to set up the project manually and know a little bit more about what you are doing.
I'd suggest that you wait until VS 2010 comes out, as there are so many new improvements, like context sensitive help... was completely revamped. Hold in there!
I would suggest going the route of purchasing the VS license and then going out and getting reshaper from jetbrains.com
Reshaper has built in unit test, refactoring, code completion, templates, ...
along with that you could use AnkhSVN as it is free, personally I have not found Visual SVN is worth the cost at even $50.
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I developed a small winforms application for myself in Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition at my workplace, the Visual Studio is licensed to the firm I work at.
If I want to sell that application, what are my license options?
EDIT:
The issue here is not my relationship with my employer (the code was written after hours, we have an understanding) but my relationship with Microsoft.
Ex. if I continue developing in Visual Studio Express can I keep my old code? Is there a way to verify if some assemblies were written using a Visual Studio Professional?
I would say that depended more on your contract with your employer rather than the licensing of Visual Studio itself. If it's a properly licensed copy, then the issue lies solely with your employer.
A lot of developer's contracts do state that any code written whilst at work, or on the employer's equipment, or even at any time whilst employed, belongs to the employer.
If that is not the case, I'd download a copy of Visual Studio Express, and do any further development on your own system, just to cover yourself.
I'm not a lawyer, but generally if you develop something at work, using your employer's tools, then they own it, not you.
If you have an "understanding" get it in writing. If your product turns out to be a money maker then you'll be glad you did.
As for Visual Studio, you should be fine distributing the application with whatever license you choose. If you want to keep developing at home, move it over to Express (you can keep your code, but may have to deal with the lower level of functionality in Express) or buy a license for Pro.
I'm having trouble seeing what the issue here is. Assuming your employer has a properly licensed copy of Visual Studio, they have the right to let you use it for any purpose they choose. It's no business of Microsoft's whether or not they let you use company resources for your own project.
The EULA that you agreed to when you installed Visual Studio is quite explicit. Not only do you own the rights to the code you develop using VS, you are required to explicitly claim copyright on your code.
One file you should review is redist.txt, it is copied to the installation directory. It lists the files that are owned by Microsoft that you are allowed to redistribute freely. All the essentials are there, like the .NET framework. Anything that is not in that list is not yours to use.
There is one specific exclusion in the EULA, you are not allowed to develop a product that can be used to allow your customers to access Internet resources for a fee. A bit of an odd-ball exclusion, I assume it is meant to suppress competition for a business segment that MSFT doesn't control.
Finally, as others have alluded, an "understanding" with your employer means squat when it is crunch time. Carefully review the employee contract you signed. It's been quite a while since I last saw one that didn't claim ownership of after-hours work. As well as "related" works produced after the end of the agreement for a certain period. IP is big, your brain is pwned.
Microsoft's DreamSpark ( https://www.dreamspark.com/default.aspx ) program might be a good option. Basically a three-year MSDN subscription for free (with some requirements about building an actual product, etc. - sounds perfect)
Edit: It's "BizSpark": http://www.microsoft.com/BizSpark/
Try if the project works in Visual Studio Express Edition.
It it does, the problem is solved.
If not, return to step 1.
Don't know about the bytecode itself, but first check the assembly file properties. On my vista box I right click -> properties then select the details tab. Then run ILDASM and check the properties on the assembly.
Also double check the EULA on the express editions, the web page specifies it targets "hobbyist" and "enthusiasts". My paranoid side thinks there might be identifiable stuff.
Finally if you want to be really careful, just download the SDK compile your code on the command line before distributing your code.
Explore the EULA on VS Professional. You should be able to discern what you can and can't do from there. Compare this to the EULA for Express. It's tedious, but it's the right place to start.