You get 3 simultaneous WebDirect Custom Web Publishing connections, and 3 user licenses.
3 connections at once for WebDirect is the definition of concurrent connections.
3 user licenses is 3 people testing. When your license for a person testing ends, you can reassign it to someone else. You internally need to track that.
What is the piece that is causing the confusion, so we can get it cleared up?
No, that is for CWP, not for WebDirect. It specifically it says user license connections for WebDirect:
Hence, the confusion. There's also a side question of how this is implemented for anonymous [Guest] WebDirect connections (which fmpdude may not care about, but I do)
My apologizes. I typed that wrong while I was working on something else. I am sorry for adding to the confusion.
3 connections to the server for testing is what we get. There is no need to think beyond that. Don't have more than 3 connections to the server, and you are in the spirit of the license. It allows you to test a multi-user functionality.
This is what we went through with them when they first made the change to include a test-only license of FMPA also. There is a FAQ around somewhere.
License model is simple: User license is meant for organizations to have their internal people to access FM. You buy as many as you have people using FM.
Problem with license model is that it is very limited in a way that FileMaker could be used.
But current licensing is matching for other nocode/lowcode platforms like App sheet and MS Power apps. They are all only for intraorganizational use.
I think this would be worth clarifying Josh, as the EULA linked within the FDS software link is the standard one that does refer to âthe organisationâ and people who work within it.
I suspect there is no problem, but the legalese doesnât reflect this.
Under the concurrent license scheme, anonymous WebDirect connections defintiely are counted, and I can confirm that there's a hard limit. If you have N concurrent licenses, the N+1th connection to WebDirect will fail.
Reading around on the claris forums:
there is also apparently a "site" license scheme as well, giving us 4 license options:
users
concurrent
site
developer
The rules may be different for Cloud vs. self hosted - (I've seen some posting saying that there may be issues with anonymous guest users and/or automatic login options on the cloud).
A further issue - there may be technical restrictions which are not the same as the license restrictions.
I'll see about spinning up a FMS19 today and do some testing...
The FDS license is slightly different than the normal EULA. However, applying how it works is much simpler than most people make it.
3 user licenses = 3 people internally, software if installed must be on internal company owned devices. 1 person connecting with Pro, Go AND WebDirect is still one user/person. 1 license used.
If you needed external users, you would need licenses for that. You have to internally manage those licenses. If you have one client connecting with their own licensed Pro software, or they are using WebDirect/Go... they would count as a user while they are testing. But this has to be testing, not demoing.
Am I using less than 3 people connecting at the same time?
Am I truly testing?
If the answer to these questions is yes, you are in compliance. When some stops testing, you "remove" them as a named user. They don't access the software again until you need them to test again.
That is the spirit of this license. I agree it's a bit weird at times, but we need to be careful not to over-complicate this.
Annual User, Perpetual User, Concurrent Connections, Site license. Those are the options as of now. Ask if you have questions. We can do our best to talk you through it.
Annual licenses are 1/3rd the initial perpetual price ( full price ).
Perpetual licenses offer maintenance after the first year. Maintenance is 1/5 the initial perpetual price ( full price ). Around year 6, this has a lower cost of ownership than annual licensing.
Site license - everyone in you organization gets a license. Min 25 licenses. At around 12-14 users, this is often the cheapest option. Especially if you go perpetual with maintenance. The initial cost is high, but the maintenance is really low after that.
Cloud is definitely a little different. You have to be licensed on every server you connect to.
As far as I know, only Concurrent servers currently have a hard technical restriction based on the number of connections purchased.
The answer to the original question is no, it does NOT include concurrent connections in Claris' definition of the license. In practice, because of the nature of testing...kind of.
The EULA for FDS used to support at least one concurrent connection so you could have a client use their browser to test stuff on your FDS. FMI sales told me this was expected testing behavior.
Does that concurrent connection still exist in FDS 19?
I did not see it mentioned in the current EULA and Steve K. (FMI Support) still hasn't replied in six days.
I would say this is the correct answer by @jormond . FDS license terms does not say anything about organization like the "real" licenses. FDS can be bought by individual as well. And FMS in FDS is for development and testing. I'm using FDS FMS everyday for development even if I have also "real" licenses. But FM Pro I'm using is the real license not FDS version.
I am using this same setup. I'll only use the FDS FileMaker Pro install if I need to add additional devices to test multi-user functionality and user-collisions.
If I would be a single developer who develop solutions for customer I would get individual FM Pro 19 license and FDS to get dev server license. That would allow full set of software to develop anything FM related solutions. Working without development server is quite hard if end solution is served in FMS.
I see no errors in the logs. Event.log shows the following:
2021-01-11 08:16:27.799 -0800 Information 1155 xxx.local FileMaker Data API annual limit: 72 GB; annual renewal date: 05-07-2018 04:00:00.177 PM
2021-01-11 08:16:27.801 -0800 Information 1062 xxx.local Maximum number of FileMaker users permitted by this FileMaker Server license: 3
2021-01-11 08:16:27.802 -0800 Information 1063 xxx.local Maximum number of FileMaker concurrent connections permitted by this FileMaker Server license: 0
2021-01-11 08:16:27.804 -0800 Information 74 xxx.local Maximum number of files to host: 125
2021-01-11 08:16:27.804 -0800 Information 936 xxx.local Maximum number of Perform Script on Server sessions to run simultaneously: 100
2021-01-11 08:16:39.271 -0800 Information 1155 xxx.local FileMaker Data API annual limit: 72 GB; annual renewal date: 05-07-2018 04:00:00.177 PM
Conclusion: it's not clear to me what the license policy is, but the technical limitations seem to allow more than 3 concurrent WebDirect Guest connections for testing...