One thing that I keep hearing in reference to ASP.NET and MSFT technologies is that they cost money to use. Often when they are being compared to open source languages someone will mention that one factor in favor of open source is that it’s free (to an extent). My question is, when does ASP.NET actually cost money to use in terms of using the proprietary technology?
Understandably there are the hosting fees, but I’m curious about the fees outside of these hosting fees. I’m especially curious about this as it relates one-person smaller-site development (non-team/large enterprise). Any help is appreciated.
(edits)
Some excellent answers. Much appreciated The projects that I’m looking to use the technologies for would be personal sites and very small business sites (1 or 2). The intent would of course be that these projects get much bigger. It seems that for commercial production, fees will apply. What about just basic dynamic ‘shared hosting’ sites that provide information?
You have to measure many things when you determine cost. We recently went through an evaluation of platform choice by an outside vendor, and the recommendation is that we stay with a Microsoft.NET platform. Why? For us, the reason is that once you get to an enterprise-level product suite, the difference is not as big as people would like you to believe.
Purchasing Microsoft products is a sound choice. The initial cost might seem high, but keep in mind if you get Software Assurance on your purchase (Visual Studio, for example) you are entitled to free upgrades as long as you keep you SA current – and it is at a fraction of the cost of a repurchase. Many people think you need to buy the full retail version every time, and that is just not true. Work with a larger vendor, like CDW, to help with licensing questions. They got someone from Microsoft’s Licensing Division on the phone with us and helped us choose what was right. Not high-pressured at all. They actually talked us down on some of the things we thought we needed.
MSDN subscriptions are great. I have one through my employer, but also used to maintain one personally. If you are a contractor/self-employed, it is an operational expense. Like buying full products, renewing a MSDN subscription is very inexpensive compared to a purchase, and especially considering what you get. The licensing within MSDN is rather generous, and since you are a one-person shop, if I read that correctly, one MSDN is more than enough for your non-production needs. Plus, the bundled Support Incidents are a nice plus, as well.
There are many versions of Visual Studio, from the Express Editions all the way up to the Team Editions. For example, we are rolling out Team Foundation Server right now, so our costs are obviously higher. For a startup or small shop, there are TFS hosting partners and you can get Team Explorer for free. Or you can mix and match, using Visual Studio for development and something like VSS, SVN, or countless other version control products out there.
Just because someone ‘goes open source’, that does not mean that it is free. Yes, the platform choice might be free, and the tools might be free, but there is a definite chance that you will need a commercial library or component some day. Plus, nothing prevents you from going with Open Source products with Microsoft, either. There are many open source projects written in .NET that can be leveraged with your solutions, and Microsoft is becoming a lot more transparent. We are working on a very large, enterprise solution right now and we are using only one ‘commercial’ product, outside of our development tooling. There is a lot of Open Source usage, and a lot of implementations cobbled from community musings and examples.
The one thing that often goes unmentioned is the human cost that goes into these decisions. Microsoft is hated by many and their solutions might not be the fastest or most robust (although I will take IIS7 on W2K8 over any other web server configuration any day) they are focusing on making people more productive at what they can do. You aren’t just buying products with them, you are actually buying productivity. As someone who has worked in a few Open Source shops, I am very appreciative of all the things that they have gotten right and understand that free does not always mean better.
I have a ‘one-person’ side business and I really recommend looking into an MSDN subscription. It will give you access to tools and technologies that you would not otherwise be able to get your hands on without going a la carte in a retail route. Talk with someone, like a CDW, to help you figure out your licensing needs. If it works out, definitely try that route. You can cover all your in-house needs in a one person shop with an MSDN subscription, most likely (for example, a lot of the products are available to install to you (as a user) up to ten times as long as the machines that they are installed on are ‘yours’ and non-production. There are exceptions to that, but not many.)
If that does not work, try the free route. You can definitely use Mono for .NET Development, as well as the Express Editions. I know a few C# developers who swear by Mono and could not be happier.
Best of luck to you!