Ken Robertson's Blog

Ramblings of a .NET developer

"ASP.NET Licenses"? Is there such a thing?

I need a little bit of help here.  For my senior project, we've been pushing our sponsor a lot to let us use ASP.NET instead of classic ASP.  It is newer technology, much nicer to use than VBscript, and it is one of the hot things right now, so it would look better on a resume since most of us are graduating soon.

The problem?  Our sponsor knows nothing about this stuff, so she relies on her graduate student that works there.  This guy is an incredible pain.  He has already been pushing some things causing an inferior design (two applications in the same database sharing some tables... would be better for 2 separate databases with views).  He has a limited knowledge of the technology and doesn't want us to use anything he doesn't know (he can't learn, I guess), and the sponsor takes his word as the bible.  I know straight out he is wrong, but she still believes him.

Now back to ASP.NET.  Last week he was feeding us this bull about not wanting to use ASP.NET because there are “ASP.NET License” fees.  I told him I have never heard of such a thing.  .NET is a free download.  All you need is IIS, which comes with Windows Server.  Can you guys please verify this for me.  I am not 100% sure that at the big corporate level there isn't such a thing.  When he was telling us this, the sponsor wasn't there.  We have a meeting with them on Friday, I plan on bringing it up there, in front of the sponsor, to say it will not cost you and thing and to not jerk us around.

Posted: Dec 09 2003, 11:08 AM by qgyen | with 9 comment(s)
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Comments

Dan Auger said:

There is no .NET license fee. The only licenses they are going to have to worry about are the very same ones the classic asp app would require - windows client licenses in rare circumstances, and an appropriately licensed database.
# December 9, 2003 2:16 PM

Shane Bauer said:

Maybe he is thinking about the Visual Studio license fees. Or, maybe he just isn't thinking.
# December 9, 2003 2:26 PM

Shannon J Hager said:

If you have Windows for the server, adding .Net is free. Adding Mono is free if you don't have Windows for the server. You'll need an IDE, you can use SharpDevelop or ASP Web Matrix, or both (my recommendation). Both are free.
So, if you already have the server license paid for, the total extra cost is $0.
# December 9, 2003 2:31 PM

scottgu@microsoft.com said:

Hi Ken,

ASP.NET does not have any license fees. You can use it for free on any Windows 2000, XP or 2003 version (both client and server). It is available as a free download as part of the .NET Framework.

Hope this helps,

Scott
# December 9, 2003 2:47 PM

Denny said:

Hmmm....

perhaps use his own FUD back on him:

Really there is a fee? Gee I missed that show me where I buy / pay for it?
as it does not exist it can not be proven.


just ask him for proofs of any claims in a nice freindly way...

and provide documentation for what you propose to do.

if you show 25 whitepapers that support your idea and He has zero then the sposor should start to see the light.
# December 9, 2003 5:22 PM

Doug Thews said:

The only possible fee would be if you use Basic Authentication on your IIS Web. Then, for every user that's authenticated, you will have to pay an OS CAL (client access license). The Anonymous IUST/IWAM accounts come free and can be used without concurrency issues.

This is why most people use either Forms Authentication or store their userid/password information in XML or a database. In the case of a database, they end up using a single user id to fetch it - ensuring they only have to pay for 1 database CAL.
# December 9, 2003 5:41 PM

Matt Baker said:

Check out the first section on this page "...available as a free download..."

http://asp.net/download-1.1.aspx?tabindex=0&tabid=1
# December 9, 2003 7:04 PM

Doug Thews said:

Yes, it is a free download - but if you use authentication resources of the server you'll need to pay CAL's. It doesn't matter that ASP.NET is the architecture that's requesting the authentication, that's the licensing terms for the authenticating OS.
# December 10, 2003 12:57 PM

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