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I'd just use the community edition if the software I was writing is educational or free and open source.

You can legally use the Community edition for paid software, as long as your company has less than 5 employees and makes less than one million $/year or something like that (read the license carefully).

Check the license and usage here https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/community/

There's astounding amount of companies that are just telling employees to use community edition, too. Haven't yet heard of anyone being sued over it. (Just to clarify, I do not support or excuse this behaviour).

I believe that the Express editions can be used for paid software.

It is astounding how many people don't read the license. You can legally use VS Community in your company for paid software as long as you have less than 5 employees or make less than one million per year.

See https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/community/

Not if you sell your product to a company that have more than 5 employees or make more than million. Essentially community edition is for students and enthusiasts.

With that much money coming in, you ought to be able to figure it out and buy the appropriate tools.

It is if client gets that money. If you write and sell your software to such clients you can't use community version even if you work alone and get paid less than a million.

Sorry, but you are just cheap if you complain that with 1 million profit you can't afford to pay for VS.

$1 million revenue.

Doesn't really change the point about being cheap, but a business with $1 million in profit is way more fun than a business with $1 million in revenue.

It also counts if your client has such revenue. You could be making little, but you can't use community version if you work with such clients.

If you are working on the client premises ask them to buy a license for you to use. If you are working from your home ... use the Community edition and that's it.

I have my own office and no, it is not "that's it".

Oh, I was talking about companies that are certainly bivger than that.

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