Recommendation to Add Freeware to License

[RobertH]

Why is FNMS recommending we add a freeware application to a license in the License Recommendations?

The specific case is a recommendation to add '.NET Framework Client Profile 4' to a Microsoft Visual Studio with MSDN Professional license.

Is this something that should be reported to Flexera so they can fix it?

NOTE:  Whenever we Ignore a recommendation, we have to document why we ignore it so this just makes extra work for us.

[Nico_Erasmus]

Hi

Note that the MSDN licenses already include other freeware.  This recommendation comes in because it is new software/new softwrae version.

Suggest you accept the recommendation.

[kclausen]

@RobertH - I agree with @Nico_Erasmus.

The official MSDN subscription bundle includes hundreds of Microsoft Products, many of them classified as "Freeware".

[RobertH]

This is what I am hearing.  Let me know if I am getting this wrong.

Given the generic concern:  if a recommendation asks to add software to a license but the software is freely available by other means without any purchase requirement, any installation of the free software would also incorrectly trigger consumption on the license that requires purchase.   

It sounds like specifically for MSDN, the concern is irrelevant because MSDN is subscription (named user), installations of the software do not effect consumption.  Therefore, recommendations for MSDN are constructed using the list of software associated to MSDN by Microsoft without filtering freeware out. 

[kclausen · Accepted solution]

@RobertH - Yes, your summary is accurate.  Once you go into the MVLS Portal and assign a user to an MSDN subscription, that user is consuming a license even if they do not have a computer assigned to them.

[Nico_Erasmus]

Hi @RobertH 

• No consumption does not just happen because the application is on the device.
• Your Visual Studio with MSDN license on FNMS should be a Named user license. 
• For this license to consume the user must be allocated. 

For the applications on the estate to show as consumed against the license:

1. it requires the user to be named and allocated on FNMS;
2. there after, all applications configured for this license will consume against the user allocated for any devices found where this user is the assigned user or calculated user.

Regards,