License confusion with developing

Hi,

Just a quick question - is the licensing model the same as it was with 3.7 - ie. I can develop using Visual Studio until the site is ready, then purchase a license.  In the meantime when I run it from localhost or my test server it would just pop up with trial messages?

Please let me know asap - all I need to know is can I develop it locally without deploying to the domain name that I'll be buying the license for (as they have a site up already at the moment and for obvious reasons I can't upload it there until they go 'live' and are happy with the new Sitefinity based site).

Thanks alot,

Tony

Hello Tony ,

You may develop your project with the 30-day trial of the respective Sitefinity 4.x edition that you plan to purchase. After your subscription expires, you will not be able to continue developing, but you will not lose anything that you have already created. You will be then able to purchase a license for the corresponding edition, apply it to your trial, and then launch the website

Kind regards,
Ivan Dimitrov
the Telerik team

Hi Ivan,

Is there no way to renew or extend a trial license? I really like the model where I can take as long as required to develop a site (as often it's completely out of my control and I can wait weeks just for the client to provide content) and then purchase the license when the site is ready to go live. It would really sting to purchase the license so development can continue and then the client changes their mind, either about the domain or the project as a whole, that would leave me with $1,999.00 out of pocket, def not cool. With 3.x this is something I did all the time so if this is not longer an option and there's no flexibility I think it's very important to let people know that this is yet another thing that 3.x had and 4.x doesn't.

Any more info on this would be appreciated.

Regards,
Phill

Hi Ivan,

I agree with Phil but,

just to quickly confirm - the client is prepared to pay for the license, so I take it once it's purchased for www.domainwhatever.com, I can then use that license on MY local PC to develop the site for however long and then ultimately launch it to said domain?

Thanks alot,
Tony

Hi Tony Bolton,

Thank you for getting back to us!
You are absolutely correct - once you have a license for Sitefinity, you will be able to apply the license key to your project and continue development locally on your dev environment with no time limitations, and then ultimately to deploy it to the production server where it would be accessed through the domain name the license was issued for.

 If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to get back to us at your convenience!

Hi Grisha,

Can you confirm if the following is true and what a solution might be? I have one SF4 site that I've been working on since Dec 7th using the Standard Trial Key since "standard" is what I'll be deploying with. I now have 10 days left and hope I can get it done (client doesn't pay me until it's done and I'd rather not have to pay $1,999 out of my own pocket, this is a huge issue but not my latest question).

My newly discovered issue is that I want to start work on a second site that will be using a Standard License as well. I created the project using the wizard, requested a Trial key for development and the kicker, it's given me the same key that was activated on Dec 7th. So this new site I can only work on for 10 days then I'm screwed. There has to be a way to have more than one trial key at a time, how can I get around this so that I can have at 30 days to get the site done.

Regards,
Phill

Hold up. Am I reading Ivan's response right that we have 30 days to develop a website and then we have to purchase the license to continue developing. Please tell me developing on localhost doesn't need a license. That's a serious misfire if we have to purchase licenses just to work with Sitefinity. A lot of our clients take 6 months or more just to get us content. I'm not interested in footing the bill for project delays that are out of our control. I'm sure I'm just not reading it right but please let me know.

Sadly it is true - I got it confirmed as there is less than helpful explanations about this all over the shop.  Here's a reply I finally got out of one of the sales team :

"You don’t even need to map the domain to 127.0.0.1 in your hosts file – once you get the license and apply it to your project, you will have the time limit for using localhost removed, which makes it even simpler."

So yes - 30 day time limit on localhost.

I don't blame the tech guys for this - it's obviously some beurocratic numpty that has no idea about development of any kind - 30 days to develop a good quality site is next to impossible these days due, like you said, to client delays one way or another.  For myself it's decision time tonight - I'm evaluating Umbraco purely on the basis of this licensing fiasco, and to be honest despite it's quirks and the fact I discounted it a year ago it's actually quite good - the license fee increase (120+%!?) and the cuffs they've placed on development within Sitefinity are forcing me to consider the move. 

That and the fact that almost all of my effort over the past 6 months, deliberately holding off purchasing the license (no - I didn't see the small print about not being able to buy a 3.7 license after the 4 release date) - mean that I'm going to have to rewrite about half of that work to fit the new model.  They won't even allow me to downgrade a 4 license to 3.7 - even if I do understand there'd be no support for it.

I'm really gutted about this whole situation - I just hope management @ Sitefinity are paying any attention to the amount of disgruntled voices.

Tony, I feel your pain... and unless I'm wrong as I stated in my previous post, this 30 day time limit on localhost is one time only, try to setup a second site and you'll get the same key that was issued for your original testing/development. This means that all future sites will require license up front, that's a huge show stopper for me. I'm curious to hear how your Umbraco evaluation goes, I'm starting to think about making an even bigger switch and going to Drupal, the latest release seems very interesting.

Cheers,
Phill

Thanks Tony. If what you say is true we've officially moved into crazytown. Telerik can you confirm this because I'm at a loss. What is the point of removing our ability to work locally. Are you afraid, I'll show my website to my wife? Seriously, I understand that you say developer time is going to increase by 70% and by that account I may be able to get some of these sites done in 30 days, but from what I've seen in the forums so far, things that used to take 20 seconds (ahem web editors) now take hours. Did anybody account for all the items that used to be easy that are now much more difficult into the 70% savings?

Telerik, to quote Saturday Night Live, Really, I mean Really. I've got no problems with the increase in price. I'll just charge more. I've got no problems with limited editions. I just won't use them.  I've got no problem that I didn't get the "survey". I don't get a lot of surveys. But this limitation on developers (the only people who put food on your table) is insane. I'm guessing this is to stop people from installing intranets without purchasing licenses? That's the only rationale I can think of but there has to be a better way. Let me put it this way, there better be a better way.

I've built 20 sites with Sitefinity. We're building 20 more. And after those 20 we planned on building 20 more and 20 more. I've also shrugged off repeated calls and emails from Kentico. Telerik, tell me I don't have to answer their next call.

Cheers Phill - nice to know I'm not alone!

I just can't believe they've messed it up so badly.  Once I got over the $1100 price jump, realising that stuff has actually been taken out as well (ie. Forums - I know it wasn't great but it was adequate for the site) to be released 'later', on top of no Amazon S3 support out of the box was just galling.

Then being told 'tough - get used to it, no 3.7 license for you - you should have read the facebook page etc' - even to the point of me begging the sales team to sell me one even at the new price (I know, but 6 months work down the drain and a disgruntled client when you're just starting up vs. a price jump - no contest) has just finished me off.  The reason I've only got tonight to make the decision is I can only use the discount code they gave me until tomorrow - they refused to extend that to next week even though I explained I've got to actually attempt the migration in that time which, incidentally, just completely failed (as I said, a lot of bespoking - having said that though the API completely changed so none of the user controls work anymore either), so I don't have time to experiment with 4 any further.

The more I write about it the angrier I'm getting so I better sign off ;)  I'll post my evaluation thoughts tonight on Umbraco for everyone, that is if I'm not banned from here for descent!

Ps. for the sitefinity tech team I'm not annoyed at you, your support is spot on and you've helped me enormously in the past - this is aimed squarely at those that made the licensing model decisions.  I just don't get it.

...I'm sure this will be rectified soon I imagine, seems crazy to me to do

Hell, I have a test demo site just hanging around as a sandbox to just build controls on....I wouldnt want to RE-setup everything every 30 days...

This is just a note to voice my concern over this policy.

Does this mean that if want to throw together a demo site on my development computer and show a potential customer how everything will work, I have to buy a license for that potential customer?

There are many assumptions we make about these type of scenarios that are made based on history with telerik and development in general. I don't think it is wrong to make these assumptions because there is just too much information to sift through and I assume a company that has treated me a certain way will continue to do so (especially when the relationship has lasted several years). This is called trust. I have had a very good experience with telerik and have trusted them to move things in such a way as not to be too restrictive.

I was concerned with the new pricing and restrictions, not so much by what they were but by how I feel this pricing scheme was held back until the last month. I felt deceived by this; however, dismissed it based on my experience with telerik.

Anyways, I am concerned.

Well the client has spoken.  I explained what happened and that I've been investigating other avenues.  The cheque from them arrived today so I could buy the Sitefinity license, but after we discussed what Telerik have done (or not done) over the phone, they felt they couldn't trust them again so we're going with Umbraco.

For those that were interested, the evaluation was alright.  It's no Sitefinity (3.7, of course) - and some areas are a little buggy BUT it's lightweight (seriously, compared to the Sitefinity script payload it's wafer thin).  The document types are easy to change (News being a highlight - want a thumbnail?  Doddle in Umbraco - try that in version 4 you need to jump through hoops), the live content management is actually alright, and it's way of using XSLT to transform the content is actually quite clever.  Don't get me wrong - it's by no way perfect, but it's free, the packages you can download are excellent (and free!) and they're simple to install.  The only thing I would say is make sure you use the Microsoft Web Platform installer - it makes things much easier to get going.

Ironically Telerik emailed me this morning asking how my trial evaluation is going.  The same person who didn't bother replying to my pleading email regarding a 3.7 license - as if she never emailed me earlier in the week.  Needless to say, they got quite a comprehensive email back which I've asked to be forwarded to those in charge of licensing this mess.

So long Sitefinity - I had great plans with you, but until you change back to the Telerik I used to know, you won't be seeing any of my business again.  And that to me is the most disappointing thing of all.  Are you even listening?

Here's something interesting:

According to Telerik, if we buy one licence, we can reuse it locally on a dev machine. I would say that we can duplicate the first project on our dev machine to build new projects for demos or begining a new project, is it alright ?
I agree that there should be a solution that allow developpers to begin a project without having to pay the licence. Most customers want to have demos or POC and my small company is not able to invest so much money (it is already a lot of time investment to prepare demos). How could I show a demo with custom workflow without buying a 7 999 $ ticket ?

Vincent

Hello,

I'd like to start with apologizing to Tony - I am truly sorry for your frustration. I'd like to address the concerns raised in forum thread and provide another perspective of the situation in question:

1) Sitefinity 3.7 licenses - we have announced well in advance (2 months prior to the official Sitefinity 4.0 release date) that licenses for Sitefinity 3.7 will be taken off sale once Sitefinity 4.0 is out. As usual, though, we are always willing to help, so further arrangements are possible if you contact our sales team.

2) Extensible trial - as we always have, we try to walk in the shoes of our clients and work with them to reach all goals. The point of the trial period for Sitefinity 4.0 is to allow people to try Sitefinity, get a good feel of the interface, the features and capabilities and decide if it will work for them. The expected action if there's a positive answer to that is to obtain a license and start active development using the help of our support team.

If you are a developer and would need to create a proof of concept for your client, feel free to download Sitefinity, create a project in trial mode and deliver that POC. If you have another project coming up next month and need to prepare another proof of concept, please contact our sales team. We will gladly discuss the situation and provide the best solution, which also includes trial extension as an option, which answers Vincent's question.

Vincent, as for your initial inquiry, we don't limit localhost development in any way as long as you have purchased a Sitefinity license for a given domain name.

All the best,
Grisha Karanikolov
the Telerik team

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After reading the last post, I have a question. We develop sites for our clients also and understand the issue of getting a site out in the 30 day trial period. In your post, you mentioned that development was not limited on localhost as long as we have purchased a license for a given domain name. So if we have purchased a license for our company, can we use that license as a temp license for a POC/development build? The development build will use a different domain for the clients to see while in process and also for us to access while integrating content and flushing out the site. We are ok if the site produces a "Trial" message if we can use our license for this development purpose as this is for developmental purposes only and not intended for public use. Sometimes our large corporate clients might not have decided on a domain when it's a new site. We may not get the actual domain name until the site is ready to launch. So to force us to lock down a domain when we are in the development stage doesn't always work.

Hi Richard,

Actually we never forced clients to register a domain name with their licenses. I will first address your case and then add some useful general information.

Since your company already has a domain name (for ex. mycompany.com), you can have a subdomain like client1.mycompany.com and deploy the client's project there. You won't even get a trial message, as your license will cover all subdomains of mycompany.com.

Once you purchase a new license, you are not obliged to move on and register a domain name for it. You can download that license key from your account and apply it to your project. If you do so, you will not get a trial message while developing on localhost. Once your client is ready with the domain name of their choice, you can go ahead and register it, then apply the updated license key to the project, and it will be ready to work with the domain name of your choice.

Hope that helps!

Best regards,

Hey Greg,
  Okay, so if on my dev machine I setup the hostfile to resolve my IP to those subdomains (dev.mycompany.com), and drop in the license file to mycompany.com...? Would that work...?  I would imagine it would be fine, right?

Hi Greg,

Thanks for the clarification. This satisfies my concerns, as I have purchased a license of SF 4 so I'm ok for any and all future local development. It always makes me nervous when I have to purchase the license for the client and never know if they'll see the project through or if they'll change their mind about the domain name. Now I can develop and not worry about purchasing until the client signs off on the site and is ready to launch.

Regards,
Phill

@ Steve - Absolutely, Steve, that is correct.

@ Phill - I totally understand. We would never want to put developers in the situation of being stuck with license keys that they would never need to use. Glad that the clarification satisfied your concerns!

All the best,
Grisha Karanikolov
the Telerik team

That's great news. I just wish you would have told us on Friday so I didn't spend the entire weekend crying like a little baby ;)

So you still have to purchase 'a' license if you want to work past the 30 days?

I just tried to create a new trial project and got an error... what are you guys playing at?

Okay, folks, what the heck is up with Sitefinity 4?  Why so many licensing changes and restrictions?  Seriously, you have to buy a license while developing?  What about testing Sitefinity components?  What about creating Sitefinity test sites?  What about cloning / forking a Sitefinity site into another development domain?  Dudes, this is absolutely crazy!

Can't we get a single development license for all our Sitefinity projects?  You've been really heavy-handed with the developers for this release.  Little documentation for developing user controls, more complicated objects, and now this.  Can the next release of Sitefinity be pro-developer?  All of this has made us cringe and question whether or not we should continue offering Sitefinity to clients.

Phew!

Being the instigator of this post, I didn't expect quite so many respondents!  I was going to leave this alone, but I think this needs clarification from all sides.

The way I understand it from Telerik and the email correspondence I had with them is that :

- If you're a developer and have not purchased a Sitefinity 4 license for any site - you will be stuffed after 30 days.  This means that, if you're working on a large project taking longer than 30 days, and you've not purchased a license 'ever', you'll need to buy one.

- Once you have a license, you'll be able to develop indefinitely for any project on your local machine, but only one at a time.

(Telerik - if this is wrong, by all means correct me - but even now, after oodles of correspondence, I'm still a little confused by all this).

It does mean that if you're a small developer like myself on their first major project, and you need certain features - you could end up paying lots of money after the 30 days.  I couldn't do this - the client were not happy about it (quite rightly) as the site was not in a production state - and $2000 is a lot of money which I couldn't afford to foot myself.

I can understand the need for reform in terms of licenses and how they're sold - but some comments are correct in my mind - the developer, particularly single-manned developers - are losing out on this new approach.  The 3.7 way of doing things was the right way imho - it's free while you're developing on localhost, but anything outside of that gave a warning.  I don't see why this has changed as there was no need to do this - they could have still had the same license template regardless, yet now they've alienated a sizeable portion of the community.

I hope to come back one day, but I think version 4 is still very liquid at the moment and things don't seem quite finished off.  I've ditched Sitefinity and jumped to Umbraco.  I've been criticised a little by Telerik (in a nice way), but I feel I've made the right choice (so does the client, incidentally) and so far been very impressed by it's performance and developer-friendliness.

So I guess the upshot is - if you don't like the licensing model, and you can afford to do it - shop elsewhere.  I did, and I don't regret it for one second, regardless of how much I respect the Sitefinity technical & support team.

Hopefully this is the last post on here, unless of course I've got the license details completely wrong, which given all of the above, could well be the case!

Cheers.

Sorry to jump in so late and might ask the same stuff again

This how I usually work

a) I want to have two demo sites (one small business, one standard edtion) running on my site www.test-it-now.com to show my clients the potential of SF.

Why the 30 days policy if you have the trial messages. No one would consider developing a live site and have the trial message shown -> it could be amended to -> if this site is a productive site then the owner did steal this CMS. Anything to make them look bad. I

b) Now i have another client and I want to setup a demosite with a design for him. I am about to make an offer for design and CMS so I want to show this to the clients as close as possible with the CMS workin.

Could it be that you can have only one trial license per version?

MY CONCERNS

To a) if it is the case that you have to prolonge your trial every 30-days. Thats probably just what I have to do. Alternatively I could set up a sandbox every time I want to show SF to any potential client.

To b) if its the case that I can have only one trial working a) would not be possible anymore.

MY QUESTION

If my concerns are true: Is it realy so likely that someone would run a productive site with a trial version that you limit us developers so much in promoting Sitefinity?

Regards Markus

Hey,

Again, I would like to emphasize on the terms "trial" and "evaluation".  The 30 days trial period of Sitefinity is designated for evaluation purposes, i.e. if you are a developer who would like to try the software out and see if it will work for your needs and requirements (downloadable trial) or if you are a business user and would like to try the look and feel of the system (sandboxes). In the typical case 30 days should be enough for that purpose. We are always here to work with you and assist in cases where exceptions occur.
Sitefinity 4.0, while in trial mode, is not intended for development purposes (except maybe in cases where it's your first project and you need to create a proof of concept).
An example - I don't think that a graphical designer would be able to use a product like the Adobe Photoshop suite to first fully create his designs and only then purchase the software. You try the software to see if it works for you, then you buy it and use it for your production needs. This is how Sitefinity is also supposed to be used.
Coming from a web development company, my experience shows that there is hardly a developer that would commit into creating a fully functional project and be paid only afterwards. That's just what I've seen, but I don't think that was an exception in the IT world.  And one of the main reasons one would want to purchase a Sitefinity license shortly after there is a commitment on any project that involves Sitefinity is the assistance he would get from our support team during the development process.

For cases like the one Markus described - if you would like to create a sample website where you'd demonstrate Sitefinity features - in case you're not willing to invest in a license, you always have the Community edition whose limitations shouldn't be much of a problem - after all it's a sample website that you are creating.
Furthermore, developers with 3 and more projects can easily become partners and benefit from the assets you receive with the partner program (like the complementary license that you can use for your company website and development environments that you can set up as sub-domains)

I'd also like to address something that Tony said :

- Once you have a license, you'll be able to develop indefinitely for any project on your local machine, but only one at a time.

Hi Greg, I think the fact that a developer can continue to future sites once they've developed and purchased a license for the first one will meet the needs of almost all devs, especially those that were initially concerned here.

However I'd like to point out that your Photoshop analogy doesn't hold water, it's definitely and apples to oranges comparison. I'd actually prefer if Sitefinity used a Photoshop licensing model, forcing me to buy up front (they offer a 30 day trial as well) and then after I could use Sitefinity for as many clients and projects as I want, without having to pay another cent. See the issue with your comparison? The two are not at all the same and I don't think Telerik will ever go with a Photoshop licensing model.

Since you force users to purchase the product again for every project/domain I think the trial should also be reset every time. When working on a web project where half or a 1/3 of the budget is for SF license, it's hard to take the up front deposit that I ask of clients and put 100% of that towards a license, I need to eat while I'm developing the project too.

Again, this could all come down to the fact that before you used to do it one way which catered but more to the smaller web developer shops and clients and now you're going after bigger fish so your new model doesn't work as well for many of your previous loyal customers.

The last of my 2 cents on the subject.

Cheers,
Phill

Dear Greg

Thanks for your feedback. However I disagree in some points.

Having just the community edition is simply not enough, sorry. There is multilingual support in SE which you might want to show.

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Yes there are acutally people setting up a CMS with the design to get a job. It's a competetive market and if I can show my design with SF it might win against a better design but with typo3. I go the extra mile :-)

Also design could be by someone else and I only present the CMS. The closer you get to the real thing the more likely it is you hit the nail on the head an close the deal.

----------

About not investing in an extra license. I am not even sure if I was willing to spend 2000 USD for putting up a demo site that I could run a SE and SBE version side by side. And shurly I would not to buy both. (Milen is working on that for me)


-----------

And it's not me who needs to evaluate SF but the POTENTIAL CLIENT if it is worth 2k for them

And of course I can not tell a potential client to open an account with telerik so he can test the CSM. I guess you agree on this.

----------

Back in the 3.7 days you had a sample site that users could work on and was reset at night or so. Why don't you set up sample sites (SBE and SE) so we can show it to potential clients - better then nothing.

Markus

Hi again,

Thank you Markus, Phill and all for your comments. I would like to ask you to bare with me on this a bit further. I will try to illustrate the current logic behind the current licensing model and ask you to share your thoughts with me on this.

The way I see it, if I am a developer working on my new project and wondering which CMS to use, I could use the trial of Sitefinity to see if it would fit my needs. I have 30 days for evaluation.

If I need to create a proof of concept for a client, I could easily create a new project and use the community license for as many of projects as I need to and does not imply any time limitations.
I wouldn't invest my time to create the whole project and get paid at the end - I would prepare a proof of concept so that my client would see that my solution is the right for him (without going into complex development without the client's commitment). I would create a template with a theme, maybe place some content, possible create a couple of custom widgets and illustrate the options that stand ahead. If the client agrees and hires me , I could move ahead and purchase a license (not with my own, but with the client's money), which I can plug into the project I've already started and have the remaining Sitefinity features unlocked.

Do you see any flaws in this scenario? I would love to hear your comments on this. All the feedback we receive does get to the people that make decisions. The current licensing model actually was chosen based on a lengthy discussion in our forums, tickets and e-mails .


Kind regards,
Grisha 'Greg' Karanikolov
the Telerik team

Dear Greg

Yes there are some flaws

a) Its not me testing the CMS its my clients
b) what if you want to show how it works with two languages
c) what if you want to show some workflow
d) what if you want to invest the time to create a demo project for the client - Not the whole project just a demo.
   (SF can be a big part of selling your solution)

Again its not me who has to make a decition. I know that SF is the way to go. But the clients must have an opertunity do decide (or I want to give him an opertunity) if SF is the right tool for them. And that's why sometimes I go the extra mile with setting up a small demo project with the future design so the client can play around and be supriesed how easy SF is to use.

Imagin a car sales person who is selling BMW. You have 3,5,7 but in the showroom you have only the 3-er version and just tell the client that the 5 and 7 are very simmiliar but they are just bigger, stronger and faster.

I am sure they want to testdrive the 5 or 7 if they want to buy. Again the sales person (developer) knows that the BMW 5 or BWM 7 is the right car but sometimes it is still nice if the client can at least look at the bigger cars or even test drive it. The sales person could have a proof of concept that BMW is a car that drives nicely by having the client test drive the 3 version.

To me the only explenation why to limit a trial version is to have the client buy faster. Again I had projects where we were working on the site for 12 month before going online. So I understand Telerik on this matter. After all it's a lost revenue.

Markus

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The current licensing model actually was chosen based on a lengthy discussion in our forums, tickets and e-mails .

I am not about to read the whole thread there but I would be supriesd to find any comment from a developer like

1) I would like telerik to limit the SBE to 50 pages
2) How about limiting the trial version to 30 days

Hi Greg

....If the client agrees and hires me , I could move ahead and purchase a license (not with my own, but with the client's money)..

Maybe Telerik has the clients that pay immediately after hiring but in our cases they are paying after I've delivered something and I think they expect more than buying a license for them.

Kind regards
Udo

Greg,
  Each day (let alone month) they have bought the license ticks away at the next renewal billing cycle.

We actually have a client in which we started building out their site back in Oct of 2009. We are just now getting ready to launch the site. How is is right to force the client to purchase a license so we can develop the site and in a case like this, their license would have expired before the site was launched? Having the ability to build out the site and then purchase the license when it is ready to go live, seems to be the best option. During this period, having the "Trial" message show up is fine with us and our clients. They have not made that purchase yet and they understand it will go away when they purchase the license.

I understand the option of building this out in the community edition, but if the client intends on using some of the features in the standard version, or features of another version, then that can't be completed till the license has been bought. So development of forms and such would have to be done after the license purchase which would then require more approval from the client and potential of even more stall time.

Hi

I don't know if this helps, but here goes....

I'm a one-man band and I've purchased the Standard Licence for the $899

Not started in earnest on 4.0 for development yet but my domain is www.protean.org.uk

My intention is to develop customer proofs using sub-domains of my own domain (protean.org.uk)

For example:
http://client1.protean.org.uk
http://client2.protean.org.uk

Unless I'm missing something multiple sub-domains would allow me to develop the website for an extended period of time and then the client pays for their own domain on "go live"

Martin

@Martin

You are somewhat right, however:

I am not even sure if you could developpe a SBE with your SE liscence.
I for example want to run two demo sites under a differen domain then my own (one SBE one SE)
My site still runs in 3.5 and with a ISP that has only limited RAM in shared hosting.

So yes, your scenario can work.

Markus

Hi Markus

1) Different Versions (SBE,SE) - My thinking is that I develop client prototypes in the SE Version using sub-domains but only use features available for the SBE platform. Then when the client gives the go-ahead, register the SBE licence and simply use the Sitefinity database as is.

2) Shared Hosting problems - I lease a dedicated server, which may seem like overkill, but it has paid dividends in that I have full control of issues like DNS, Memory. .NET Framework and Trust Levels.

It has cost me time/money to get comfortable with managing  the Server/OS/etc. but it does give ME the freedom to decide what resources are required NOT the ISP.

Martin

Hi Guys,

We started a project some months ago and needed to come back to it today, only to find that we need to enter a license key. I have read through all the posts here and it still seems overly complicated and bound to a problem for future projects.

In the meantime, we have a license because we are Sitefinity partners and we are about to insert the key. What I would like to know for now, is how do I then move that license back to localhost because at the moment, I get this when I try add the license to my local development site.

• Wrong product version (I need to check on this as I am sure that we chose professional)
• Invalid Domain

Hi James
Remember that you must have a license file that corresponds to the version you are running. It's probably the problem. View your account, where all licensed versions are displayed.

Peter

@James
  Best thing to do is not use localhost...setup a local lite in IIS that's a subdomain of your site.

So if you're developing for www.bigtimesite.com, then your IIS dev site is like local.bigtimesite.com.

Then the valid license will just work, and inside of the SF4 backend when you go to version, there's an update license button which will detect the domain and go get the proper license from telerik.

Cheers,
Steve

Hi Steve,

After much trial and error, I was able to get the site working locally. I created a local.mysite.com subdomain, installed the license and then pulled the entire site back to my localhost which seems to have worked. In our situation, we are a team of people working on projects and need to use a Source Control application.

Do you know if a best practices paper exists for teams working with Sitefinity 4.x in a source control environment maybe? We would love to be able to streamline our process where the installation and day to day working on files is simplified.

Thanks,
James

@James
  I do not know if such a paper exists, perhaps someone else emailed on this thread might.

However what we do here is everyone sets up their local IIS to the same subdomain (as you have) and really the web.config keeps the IIS settings consistent across all the instances. 

Personally (for my company) I use DropBox :)

Steve