Software Subscriptions
MSDN has historically offered a subscription package whereby developers have access and licenses to use nearly all Microsoft software that has ever been released to the public. Subscriptions are sold on an annual basis, and cost anywhere from $2,000 to $20,000USD per year per subscription, as it is offered in several tiers. Holders of such subscriptions (except the lowest library-only levels) receive new Microsoft software on DVDs or via downloads every few weeks or months. The software generally comes on specially marked MSDN discs, but contains the identical retail or volume-license software as it is released to the public.
Although in most cases the software itself functions exactly like the full product, the MSDN end-user license agreement prohibits use of the software in a business production environment. This is a legal restriction, not a technical one. As an example, MSDN regularly includes the latest Windows operating systems (such as Windows Vista and Windows 7), server software such as SQL Server 2008, development tools such as Visual Studio, and applications like Microsoft Office and MapPoint. For software that requires a product key, a Microsoft website generates these on demand. Such a package provides a single computer enthusiast with access to nearly everything Microsoft offers. However, a business caught with an office full of PCs and servers running the software included in an MSDN subscription without the appropriate non-MSDN licenses for those machines would be treated no differently in a software licensing audit than if the software were obtained through piracy.
Microsoft's MSDN license agreement makes a specific exception for Microsoft Office, allowing the subscription holder to personally use it for business purposes without needing a separate license — but only with the "MSDN Premium Subscription" and even so only "directly related to the design, development and test and/or documentation of software projects" as stated in the MSDN licensing FAQ. As would be expected, any software created with the development tools (like Visual Studio), along with the runtime components needed to use it, isn't restricted in any way by Microsoft either — such software can and regularly is used for business production purposes. The license agreement refers to several other items in the subscription and grants additional similar exceptions as appropriate.
An MSDN subscriber is entitled to activate as many copies as needed for his/her own development purposes. Therefore, if a computer enthusiast somehow has 20 computers at home which he uses himself for software development (and aren't acting as part of a business, for example, a server farm), one subscription allows all 20 of those computers to be running their own separate copy of Windows, Office, and any other Microsoft product. After a few installations, the activation keys will stop allowing automatic product activation over the Internet, but after a telephone call to the Product Activation hotline to confirm that the installations are indeed legitimate and consistent with the license agreement, the activations are granted over the phone.
Even though an MSDN subscription is on an annual basis (for retail subscriptions—volume licensing subscriptions can be multi-year), the license to use the software, according to the agreement, does not terminate. The individual just isn't entitled to any upgrades after the subscription has expired. An MSDN subscription also allows access to obsolete software from Microsoft's past. Although they aren't included in the regular CD/DVD shipments, subscribers can download old software such as MS-DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.1 from MSDN Subscriber Downloads. Such software usually comes in the form of ISO or floppy disk image files that allow the subscriber to reproduce the original installation media after the download.
Read more about this topic: Microsoft Developer Network