Thread: visual studio, which version?

You can probably answer that question better than we can. The only thing that I can think of is that perhaps there are some legal limitations with using the Express edition.

Why not get Express for now, since it's free, and buy another version later on if you need it? . . .

No, the license is nice enough not to forbid it. However, as mentioned, Express cannot compile for 64-bit systems, and has various other cuts. Basically, check the feature list of the IDE for the differences. The compiler is the same. (In fact, the C# compiler comes with the framework, and even with that version you're free to do whatever you want with the created software.)

Still, it's good to check the license anyway. MS has been known to put strange things in there. Example: you're not allowed to publish performance measurements of the newest Office versions.

Originally Posted by CornedBee

MS has been known to put strange things in there.

It's important to note, however, that just because something is stated in the license, does not necessarily make it legally binding (which is why a lot of licenses carry a disclaimer to say that if any part of the license is invalidated, the rest still holds). Not that I'm advocating breaking license restrictions, the last thing you probably want to do is get into a court battle with Microsoft ;-)

QuantumPete

Originally Posted by paulstovell

As CornedBee said, you're allowed to produce commercial software with the express editions. The simple reason why? .NET code is .NET code, and the IDE's do nothing special around how it is compiled. Therefore, it is impossible to prove whether .NET code was compiled from an IDE (C# Express), or from the command-line tools that ship with the free .NET framework (csc.exe).

The fact that it isn't provable by examining the code isn't a particularly good argument when it comes to license content. If MS wanted to, they could easily state that "This version can not be used to produce code that is sold commercially". If you then sell code commercially, and MS believes you do this from a Express edition, it would be your task (as a individual or company) to prove that the code produced comes from a commercial licensed product - e.g. show that you have bought 15 licenses for 15 developers in the company, or that you as a individual own a license. [This is contract law, so there's no such thing as "Innocent until proven guilty", it is more of "the one with the most experienced/expensive lawyer wins"]

It is good that MS has taken the step to allow use of it for free, and that there's no limitation on how you can use the code - but the fact that something can or can't be proven by reading the code produced by a specific compiler isn't really the reason why they do/don't do something.

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Mats

Originally Posted by indigo0086

Could they jsut as easily have some meta information that is in the assembly that identifies if a program was made in Visual Studio?

Sure they could - but that means having separate binaries in each package, and if someone knows the meta-data format and meaning, it could presumably be modified.

But the point is more that there's no need to do either, because the basis of contract law is that both parties agree on something, and if later on one party is unhappy with the conformance of the other party, you go to civil court (which is different from criminal court, in, amongst other things, that you are not presumed innocent, but rather it is who the judge & jury believes most and of course what has been agreed in the contract that matters).

In the case of license agreements, you can essentially put any text in there. Whether you can prove the other party broke the agreement or not is a different matter, and whether the court rules one way or another is a further different matter.

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Mats