Steve Jones - SSC Editor (2/14/2012)
Short answer: contact MS. Ultimately they have the final say since they can sue you for non-compliance.Longer answer: My reading, and understanding, would be that accessing SQL Server through any means in real time is what the CAL meets. If you email a report to people, no CAL is required. I say this because there are companies that email reports to business partners from SQL Server and I'm sure they are not licensing each recipient. They might be in per-socket licensing, but I wouldn't count on that for many companies.
Creating a flat file and leaving it somewhere for people to access via SMB (file sharing), no CAL required.
IANAL
Steve...after much debate and deliberation, I think we have come to a similar conclusion as you.
We have trawled the net for ages looking for some form of guidance.
From what we have seen of MS licensing docs on this topic...a cynic could possibly construe that they are deliberately vague ............ 😉
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