Do you use 30 day trial servers to do development work?

Question

I know this is an odd question but I need to ask it to get information to present to a client. Their lead network admin wants me to work on 30 day trial servers like Sharepoint & SQL Server to develop projects for their clients. While I will do as they ask, I'm not convinced this is the best way to go about developing software or troubleshooting previously developed software. To be honest, I've never worked on custom development for any server/software using a trial version.

What arguements are there for and against working on trial software/servers?

Answer 1

Use Open Source!

Answer 2

Apart from the ethical arguments, there are practical ones:

What are you supposed to do if development overruns? Start reinstalling everything, wasting several days doing so?

Additionally, if the client is so strapped for cash that they want to do this, how can you be certain they will pay you (either due to cash flow problems, or simply because of their shady ethics)?

Answer 3

Pro: It enables you to mock up a concept and see if it seems like the development path will be easy before you shell out large amounts of money for the real deal.

Cons: It could trap you in a vicious cycle of wiping your virtual machine and re-installing the OS, the trial version, and your product (you do use source control, correct?) if they are hoping that this will alleviate the need for ever paying for the real product.

Suggestion: If you don't mind unsolicited advice, then I would determine why the lead admin wants to use the trial versions -- and then go from there. Until you know the reasons you cannot respond to them.

If they are doing it for the pro reason, then determine if you feel comfortable working with the possibility of switching technologies 30 days into your build. (Can you do it efficiently?)

If they are doing it to avoid spending money, present some of the alternate open source / free options that you are comfortable developing with. If they will not change their modus operandi at that point, then do what is necessary, knowing what you will be walking away from / getting in to.

(And if you don't mind one more bit of unsolicited advice -- if they are doing it for the con reason and will not change WALK AWAY)

Answer 4

I'm pretty sure that that kind of use is a violation of license terms. Trial editions of servers are for evaluating a product. And if you are in fact creating a product, then you have gone way beyond evaluation.

I would never work under such terms. If you are developing a concrete product, get proper licenses for the development tools. I know that the developer edition of SQL server is not hugely expensive (compared to a version licensed for production use), so I would imagine that the same counts for Sharepoint.

And then there is of course, as already mentioned, what do you do when the trail period expires?

Answer 5

I wouldn't mind doing this so long as the job is shorter than 30 days. Make sure your work contract they're paying for the time worked and not specific deliverables, because your deliverables are time-bombed.

Also be prepared to walk away. If this company doesn't have resources to get the right software, you don't want to be there longer than 30 days anyhow.

Answer 6

Point them at BizSpark. Microsoft is begging people to use their stuff. A hunny will get you everything on the map for 3 years or until you start making money.

Oh, to answer your question: If I need to get funding for technology not present in the infrastructure or to do a proof of concept I would not think twice about using evals. That is what they are for. I would be evaluating the suitability of the product for use with my designs. Seems easy to me. Maybe I am just, hold on, i have to give my parrot a cracker... ;-)

Answer 7

I'm not sure what others are seeing as unethical here. If the project is short enough to be completed within the 30 day trial, I don't see any issues. I think that's a great use of trials - if they can't handle a clients applications then they aren't a good option and you can use something else.

I think others here have given some good advice regarding the longer than 30 days projects and some good contract ideas.

Answer 8

Microsoft provides several pre-built virtual machines, that contains full stacks. (Server 2008/Sql 2008/Sharepoin) (Server 2003/Sql/Project Server) etc. They are time bombed, but often (not always) Microsoft will provide a new image after the time out.

The benefit of using these images is that they are already configured and good to go. As an example here is a beta of sharepoint 2010 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0c51819b-3d40-435c-a103-a5481fe0a0d2&displaylang=en).

If the project has a quick timeline, it provides the developers access to the configured stack right away, with no ramp up time of building new virtual machines.

Esp when working on beta/early release software this is great.

Answer 9

How in-house do the servers have to be? Would a hosted solution work for them? (Dreamhost, Amazon Web Services, whatever)? Some hosting systems provide pretty complex machine images (lots of stuff pre-installed--definitely AWS, presumably most others), decreasing setup time/effort. I think those come with licenses, though I don't honestly know. Plus, in at least some cases, you (they) only pay for what you (they) use.

Obviously no good if the physical machine needs to be in-house, or if things are otherwise super-sensitive.

Answer 10

The SQL Server evaluation's download page mentions that the evaluation license is good for 180 days, and specifically advertises it as a tool you can use for mission-critical applications. This tells me MS is fine with your using it for development work.

To answer a question with more questions:

1. How long does this project run?

2. What phase of the effort are you in now?

3. Is this an internal/proof-of-concept project, or something that your customer(s) will be using for a long time?

If you are going to need to use SQL Server for Operations & Maintenance support months past the initial evaluation period, you ought to get a license for the full version of it. And also consider what your customers are using so that you can reproduce any bugs that come back from them.

I don't think it's ethical to continually renew evaluation licenses to have a longer evaluation period. Companies call them "evaluations" as a try-before-you-buy, not a keep-trying-without-buying.