Licensing for maps

My apologies in advance if this is not the correct place for this question.

We have a raging discussion in the office about the use of MapPoint -- specifically a developer (MSDN-licensed) copy of it. We have a developer who, on a fairly regular basis -- meaning not in a test or development capacity -- creates maps for assorted business groups, and then makes the map available to all members of those groups. The map itself is just static (a JPEG or such) and the distribution is internal (nothing public-facing).

It's his contention that this is a valid use, based on his understanding of the license and EULA. I'm in opposite camp; I feel he's doing "production" work, and that this violates the nature (if not the letter) of the developer license.

If anyone has any thoughts or insights regarding this, or, even better, a definitive answer, I'd be most appreciative. Chapter and verse citations would be especially nice.

TIA,
regent

If you need a definitive answer, the only place you should be asking
this is at Microsoft using this email address: maplic@microsoft.com

Mike Mattys

I agree with your assessment, that developer should probably get a real license, not just MSDN.

But it would boil down to the interpretation of how exactly it's being used in your organization - could he say it's still just development they way he's using it (working on stuff for the future) or does he agree with you that it's production?

From my understanding MSDN licenses are supposed to only be used for development...

Eric

Mike, good suggestion and thanks for the email address.

Eric, thanks for the confirmation that this scenario didn't pass the "sniff" test. I don't see how he could claim what he's doing as either development or testing. He makes up these maps ad hoc (which might be his loophole here), but still on a fairly regular basis, and with data from production systems. It seems like it's become an expected aspect of standard business operations, which strongly suggests "production" to me.

Thanks again for the responses.

Sure.

By the way - it sounds a but overblown to be a "raging discussion" if it's only one use user and one license. Just go pick up a copy or just leave it that you've stated your view of how it's being used and then worry about something else ;-)

Eric

I would agree if that's all it would be, and it was confined to just me and him. But the developer advocating the contrary point of view is claiming it's OK for other developers in the group to be doing what he is. In the email roundtables we've been having, I sometimes make a valid argument that gets the people in the middle agreeing with me, sometimes the other way round. So perhaps "pitched" would be more appropriate than "raging."

Nevertheless, if this is an inappropriate use of MSDN licensed product it would be far easier to squash one developer behaving badly than to have the group or company come under fire for doing that. Maybe I just need to convince our boss to get a production license for that guy and then funnel any MapPoint requests to him, period. (But don't get me started on our boss and how that would never happen.)