Since I’m liking the Zend Studio, I sent an e-mail into the Zend folks asking if they had a license that would allow me to install the Zend Studio on all three of my development machines, without requiring 3 separate licenses (as their license agreement states is required).
I received a reply this morning, letting me know that they would allow me to do this with a single license. I asked why their license agreement stated otherwise, and they replied that they are working on getting that changed. I’m glad to see they have adopted a more enlightened approach1 and encourage them to get properly updated terms in their license agreement.
If, like me, you were scared off by their current license terms; it’s probably worth sending them a note. I’m going to be testing the Zend Studio for another week or two, but I’m leaning towards buying the $299 version.
- I don’t know any developers that only use one machine these days. [back]
How does something like Zend Studio compare with plain text editors like VI or VIM? I’ve tried Eclipse PHP and several others (including Dreamweaver!) and have always gone back to Vim. The productivity I gain from not needing to take my hands off the keyboard is the deciding factor every time.
I think that’s going to be something you have to decide for yourself. 🙂
I still do at least ~95 keyboard nav, just like I do in BBEdit, etc.
[…] Alex King wrote a posting about the Zend Studio PHP IDE where he reports that you are actually allowed to use a license on more than one computer even though the license text states otherwise. He also emphasizes that there are no developers who use only one computer these days. […]
this is something that turned me off previously also, back in the old zend studio days I had to battle to get a multi machine license.
I tried this approach with Zend Sales support and received the following answers:
1.
To my knowledge, I believe the Studio license will be tied to one user, one workstation. I know that’s something you don’t want to hear, but I don’t believe there will be any changes to this, as of yet.
2.
Thanks for the email. Please check in every so often regarding the license structure. I don’t think anything will change to be honest.