E9.2 Question about Visual Studio 2017

bluelake

Active Member
Hi,

When we upgrade JDE tools release to 9.2.4.3, VS 2013 will be replaced with VS2017 on deployment server. My question is what kind of VS 2017 license should we apply? I learned that VS 2017 license is user based as MSDN subscriber. I do have one and apply it on my fat client.

Thanks
BlueLake
 
The short answer, is yes, the licensing is user based.

I have probably spent 100 hours over the years in communications trying to keep my customers and employers compliant with VS licensing. Here is my long answer from all of that:

You are correct that VS 2017 is user based unless you are a hosting company and can use SPLA licensing for a set of Client's JDE servers. MSDN licenses can be purchased under an enterprise agreement but still must be assigned to individuals and under EA licensing you cannot use them "offsite". I am assuming you are a JDE end-user site versus a service provider or consultancy. If a service provider you need to be covered by MSDN licensing versus EA if you will apply that license to systems outside of your organization.

VS 2013 and a number of versions before it actually had the same licensing. This has been an area where historically many of my JDE sites have been in breach in my experience. I am not the Microsoft license police and don't like like being the bearer of bad news but I have made efforts over the years to make sure my clients are at least aware of the rules. I am always covered by an MSDN license which I have been renewing since 2002 so I know my use of Visual Studio is covered anywhere.

You may have already seen this but this is the definitive resource on it:

I was working for a consultancy years back and I started to install Visual Studio without a license and require MSDN logins be used to absolutely assure that developers from our pool of onshore and offshore had to be licensed.

Here is the email template I had to keep sending out to explain the rules:

===
Any use of Visual Studio including the simple act of running install.exe (or setup.exe) to install it is a licensable act. Licenses purchased by clients on our behalf have to be formally assigned to us by name. If done via MSDN we would claim the license they purchased for us using a Microsoft ID. Once claimed the license is ours and cannot be claimed by anybody else. If the client uses a volume MSDN license then I believe it gives them a bit of control to grant/revoke a license every 90 days. If done via physical media that media should be transferred to the individual consultant and ownership assigned to them by some formal mechanism (a letter or email).

Once assigned that consultant is then licensed to use Visual Studio anywhere (including another client site). In the context of [ClientX] we would be asking them to purchase a single Visual Studio license to cover [ConsultantX] which would in turn let him legally use the software at other clients. We are therefore in essence asking them to fund [ConsultantX]'s use of Visual Studio anywhere.

The bottom line after you have looked at the requirements and read the Visual Studio licensing white paper is that every JDE developer or CNC, regardless of whether they are in consulting or support, should be licensed under MSDN to make sure that they can ply their trade in compliance with Microsoft licensing.

I think this can be best thought of as a Visual Studio driver’s license that must be renewed each year. We can drive any VS truck out there as long as we have a license.

Note that this of course also means that if we are all licensed properly it does not assure that the client is. If they want to do development or build packages then all of their users doing those actions will need to be licensed as well.
===

With all of the above said, it does appear that Visual Studio 2017 Community Edition works even though it is not certified for JDE by Oracle. It seems to have enough of the required components including MFC and ATL needed by JDE to allow for development and package builds (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/mfc/mfc-and-atl?view=msvc-160). I don't use it myself but I have had heard from other people that they are running 2017 Community with no issues. This was not the case previously in the Express Editions.
 
The short answer, is yes, the licensing is user based.

I have probably spent 100 hours over the years in communications trying to keep my customers and employers compliant with VS licensing. Here is my long answer from all of that:

You are correct that VS 2017 is user based unless you are a hosting company and can use SPLA licensing for a set of Client's JDE servers. MSDN licenses can be purchased under an enterprise agreement but still must be assigned to individuals and under EA licensing you cannot use them "offsite". I am assuming you are a JDE end-user site versus a service provider or consultancy. If a service provider you need to be covered by MSDN licensing versus EA if you will apply that license to systems outside of your organization.

VS 2013 and a number of versions before it actually had the same licensing. This has been an area where historically many of my JDE sites have been in breach in my experience. I am not the Microsoft license police and don't like like being the bearer of bad news but I have made efforts over the years to make sure my clients are at least aware of the rules. I am always covered by an MSDN license which I have been renewing since 2002 so I know my use of Visual Studio is covered anywhere.

You may have already seen this but this is the definitive resource on it:

I was working for a consultancy years back and I started to install Visual Studio without a license and require MSDN logins be used to absolutely assure that developers from our pool of onshore and offshore had to be licensed.

Here is the email template I had to keep sending out to explain the rules:

===
Any use of Visual Studio including the simple act of running install.exe (or setup.exe) to install it is a licensable act. Licenses purchased by clients on our behalf have to be formally assigned to us by name. If done via MSDN we would claim the license they purchased for us using a Microsoft ID. Once claimed the license is ours and cannot be claimed by anybody else. If the client uses a volume MSDN license then I believe it gives them a bit of control to grant/revoke a license every 90 days. If done via physical media that media should be transferred to the individual consultant and ownership assigned to them by some formal mechanism (a letter or email).

Once assigned that consultant is then licensed to use Visual Studio anywhere (including another client site). In the context of [ClientX] we would be asking them to purchase a single Visual Studio license to cover [ConsultantX] which would in turn let him legally use the software at other clients. We are therefore in essence asking them to fund [ConsultantX]'s use of Visual Studio anywhere.

The bottom line after you have looked at the requirements and read the Visual Studio licensing white paper is that every JDE developer or CNC, regardless of whether they are in consulting or support, should be licensed under MSDN to make sure that they can ply their trade in compliance with Microsoft licensing.

I think this can be best thought of as a Visual Studio driver’s license that must be renewed each year. We can drive any VS truck out there as long as we have a license.

Note that this of course also means that if we are all licensed properly it does not assure that the client is. If they want to do development or build packages then all of their users doing those actions will need to be licensed as well.
===

With all of the above said, it does appear that Visual Studio 2017 Community Edition works even though it is not certified for JDE by Oracle. It seems to have enough of the required components including MFC and ATL needed by JDE to allow for development and package builds (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/mfc/mfc-and-atl?view=msvc-160). I don't use it myself but I have had heard from other people that they are running 2017 Community with no issues. This was not the case previously in the Express Editions.
thanks for your detailed explanation. I have better understanding about VS license now.
 
Hi,

When we upgrade JDE tools release to 9.2.4.3, VS 2013 will be replaced with VS2017 on deployment server. My question is what kind of VS 2017 license should we apply? I learned that VS 2017 license is user based as MSDN subscriber. I do have one and apply it on my fat client.

Thanks
BlueLake
Good Morning

Our JDE 9.2 was upgraded to 9.2.4.3 but the consultant didn´t warn us that we had to get vs2017. Now we are not able to buy vs2017 because it is no longer available. Is it possible to buy vs2022 and use that license for vs2017. Any suggestions to solve this issue?

Thanks a lot
 
Hi,

While migrating from 8.12 to 9.2, the consultants doing the job requested licenses for vs2013. They later upgraded to 9.2.4.3 but didn´t tell us that we had to get vs2017. Vs2017 is no longer available. Is it possible to purchase vs2022 and use the license for vs2017? Any suggestions on this issue?

Thanks a lot
 
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