[UPDATE 2/10/2010] You can now get the official Visual Studio 2010 Licensing whitepaper, which also covers TFS, Lab, and IntelliTrace. That is the best resource for understanding the licensing.
Another big piece of news with the release of VS and TFS 2010 betas yesterday is the changes to TFS licensing for 2010 that make it even more affordable. Here are the comments from Doug Seven, our licensing guru in marketing, on Soma's beta 2 announcement post.
Team Foundation Server 2010 will be included in the MSDN subscription that comes with Visual Studio 2010 Professional, Premium, Ultimate, and Test Elements. This copy of Team Foundation Server in licensed for unlimited development and test use (as is all MSDN software) and licensed for one production deployment. These MSDN subscriptions also include one CAL. Team Foundation Server has three installation choices - Basic, Advanced and Custom. You will be able to install this either on your client machine (very similar to client side SCM such as VSS) or on a server machine just like TFS 2008. Team Foundation Server will also be available in retail for around $500 USD and will include a license term allowing up to five (5) named users without CALs to use Team Foundation Server. To grow to more than five users, simply buy CALs for the new users. This enables small teams of five or fewer to get up and running on Team Foundation Server for as little as $500 USD. Of course having Visual Studio 2010 with MSDN means you can get Team Foundation Server up and running at no additional cost.
Team Foundation Server 2010 will be included in the MSDN subscription that comes with Visual Studio 2010 Professional, Premium, Ultimate, and Test Elements. This copy of Team Foundation Server in licensed for unlimited development and test use (as is all MSDN software) and licensed for one production deployment. These MSDN subscriptions also include one CAL.
Team Foundation Server has three installation choices - Basic, Advanced and Custom. You will be able to install this either on your client machine (very similar to client side SCM such as VSS) or on a server machine just like TFS 2008.
Team Foundation Server will also be available in retail for around $500 USD and will include a license term allowing up to five (5) named users without CALs to use Team Foundation Server. To grow to more than five users, simply buy CALs for the new users. This enables small teams of five or fewer to get up and running on Team Foundation Server for as little as $500 USD.
Of course having Visual Studio 2010 with MSDN means you can get Team Foundation Server up and running at no additional cost.
You can also hear more in an interview with Doug Seven conducted by three MVPS: The Ultimate Announcement Show.
I'm not a licensing expert, so I can't answer detailed questions about licensing. I did want to make sure everyone sees this. It's a really exciting change.
[UPDATE 10/20/09] I wanted to add a clarification from Doug around the CALs and SQL. There is a licensing whitepaper in the works that should be out soon.
Retail TFS does not come with 5-CALs. It has a EULA exception allowing up to 5 users without CALs. The primary difference is that CALs can be used to access multiple TFS instances. A EULA exception cannot. In other words, buying two TFS retail licenses does NOT give me rights for 10-users on one instance of TFS. It gives me rights to two instances with 5-users each. I need to buy more CALs to add users. TFS also still includes a SQL Server license for use with TFS. In other words, you can't use the SQL license included with TFS to do anything other than to support TFS.
Retail TFS does not come with 5-CALs. It has a EULA exception allowing up to 5 users without CALs. The primary difference is that CALs can be used to access multiple TFS instances. A EULA exception cannot. In other words, buying two TFS retail licenses does NOT give me rights for 10-users on one instance of TFS. It gives me rights to two instances with 5-users each. I need to buy more CALs to add users.
TFS also still includes a SQL Server license for use with TFS. In other words, you can't use the SQL license included with TFS to do anything other than to support TFS.
Great information! With the knowledge that TFS 2010 beta 2 comes with a go live license, will this also apply to the 'retail, 5 CAL version' of TFS? In other words, when the beta 2 is available to the public later this week, can a TFS instance be brought up using these bits and converted to the retail, 5 CAL version of TFS when the RTM of TFS is available at retail?
JeffK, yes you can use TFS beta 2 and then upgrade that to the RTM version.
Buck
Will the cost of a CAL be less than one fifth of the cost of the $500 server license? For example, if I use my MSDN subscription to set up a production deployment of TFS, will it be cheaper to buy all the non MSDN subscribers using the server CALs, or will I be better off buying an additional server license and using the 5 user EULA exception that comes with this?
RichN, it is my understanding that you will need to buy the CALs because the EULA exception applies only once per server. You cannot "transfer" the 5 unlicensed users from one server that you own to another. This I believe was one of the reasons that the server comes with the EULA exception rather than 5 CALs. We wanted to make it very affordable for small teams to adopt it, but there is admittedly a jump to go to that sixth user if that user is not an MSDN subscriber.
Are there any techincal limitations if we purchase 2 TFS retail licenses to prevent the CALS from connecting from 1 TFS Server to another TFS server.
If there aren't technical challenges...are there audit tools that might report which CAL was used where?
Licensing and compliance is always a nightmare so I'm hoping we don't have to track all of these CALs...we just want users to be able to connect to whatever TFS they need to work on.
Can the CAL that is included in MSDN be used for any TFS instance?
Thys
Jon, there are no product limitations on the number of CALs you can purchase and use with the servers that you own.
Unfortunately, we don't have any licensing audit tools at this time. Of course such a tool would make it easier for you to keep track of compliance. It is something that I hope we address in the future.
Thys, the CAL can be used to access any TFS server that you own. If you need to access TFS servers owned by others, you will need to have a CAL for each one.
With a dual tier configuration can you use an additional VS MSDN subscription to licence the SQL Server backend for TFS only use?
Alan, the SQL Server from a single MSDN TFS license may be used for a single TFS instance, whether in a single machine config or dual tier config.
Is there anywhere I can go for more information on the SQL license included with TFS? It seems in 2008 that only the 'Workgroup' edition of TFS included the standalone SQL Standard license (for TFS use only) - and the TFS 2010 license text says 'If your edition of the server software includes other SQL Server 2008 technology' (under section 8.b.)... it's not clear to me whether the TFS we'll get with our MSDN Premium subscription will allow us to use SQL Standard or only SQL Express. We currently run SQL 2005 for all other products and don't have immediate plans to upgrade - so if we could set up a standalone SQL 2008 Standard box for TFS only, and be covered by the TFS license, that'd be ideal.
Basically, I'm getting things installed now under the go-live license and we hope to start using it ASAP - but I want to be sure I'm not shooting myself in the foot. I'm doing initial tests with SQL Express, but I'd like to be able to use the reporting features, and also know we'll hit the 4GB limit of Express. If I install SQL Standard, I have to use a license key - all I have is my MSDN 'test' keys.
Will the TFS license included in the MSDN subscription still have the TFS 2008 licensing exception for defect tracking?
http://blogs.msdn.com/adamga/archive/2007/11/20/tfs-for-defect-tracking-licensing-change.aspx
Joe, I have asked and will get back to you. Sorry for missing your question earlier.
Jeremy, yes, that is still there. Managing it is now easier in 2010, as you can add folks to a special group so that they get redirected automatically to the simpler web UI if they fall into that category. You no longer have to hand out two URLs.
Joe, here's the answer on the licensing question from Doug Seven. Sorry for the very late response!
A restricted use license for SQL Server 2008 Std Ed. is provided with TFS 2010. You are allowed one production installation of TFS 2010 w/ SQL Server 2008 Std. Ed using your MSDN keys.
The Basic Configuration of TFS 2010 will install SQLL Server 2008 Express if you prefer to use that.
TFS 2008 provided a restricted use license for SQL Server 2005 Std Ed (both Workgroup Edition and the full licensed version).
Do you know how this will work for organisations that are half way through an Open Value Programme where we are forking out for TFS CALs that would no longer be required under this new licensing model? We have opted to pay for the licences spread over 3 annual payments - but would ideally like to adopt the new model and not have to pay the next annual payment for the TFS CALs as they are now included with our MSDN licences. Our reseller is telling us that we are locked into a contract with Microsoft and will have to pay the final year even though they are technically redundant.