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Free Products

Software Asset Management Guide
Concepts

Free Products

Some software is free to use and does not require a license. The engine still tracks it — every install is recorded as a consumption — but no grants are issued and the product never appears as under-licensed.

This page explains how free products are flagged, why they show up in install counts, and what to check when something is incorrectly classified.

What "Free" Means in the Engine

A product is treated as free when its license type code is FREE (License Type Flag 1, but with the engine treating the metric as zero-cost).

When the engine sees a consumption for a free product, it:

  1. Posts the consumption as normal.
  2. Does not look for licenses to allocate.
  3. Does not count the product in compliance numbers.

The product still appears in install counts and on individual asset records — you can still ask "what runs SQL Developer Edition?" — but it does not consume rights or contribute to a deficit.

Common Free Products

Products typically classified as free in the recognition database:

  • SQL Server Developer Edition
  • SQL Server Express Edition
  • Visual Studio Community Edition
  • Most browser plugins and reader-only tools (Adobe Acrobat Reader, but not Adobe Acrobat Pro)
  • Open-source utilities and developer tools
  • Windows components installed as part of an OS that has its own license

How to Confirm a Product Is Classified as Free

From the Software Catalog:

  1. Open Licensing → Licensing Position
  2. Find and open the product record
  3. Check the License Type field — should be Free (code FREE)

From the recognition side, look at the title's recognition record:

  1. Open Licensing → Software Recognition (or via an unrecognized title's Recognition button)
  2. The Class field should be Free for free titles

Some titles are classified as Primary even though the product they map to is FREE. This is intentional — they are considered significant enough to be visible alongside other primary titles in reports, even though they do not need a licence. The classification on the title and the type on the product can legitimately differ in this way.

Spotting an Incorrect Classification

The classification of free products is normally correct out of the box, because the central recognition database supplies the right defaults. The two cases where you may want to adjust:

A paid product classified as free. The consumption shows up in install counts but the engine does not try to license it. The product appears in reports without rights or outstanding requirement.

How to spot it: look at the Licensing Position for the product. If it shows installs but no rights and no outstanding requirement, the product is being treated as free.

How to correct it: change the License Type on the catalog entry to a paid type (e.g., USER, SERVER, CORE) and recalculate.

A free product classified as paid. The engine tries to grant licenses for installs that do not need them, producing inflated deficits.

How to spot it: the product shows installs and outstanding requirement, but you know it is free.

How to correct it: change the License Type on the catalog entry to FREE and recalculate. The deficit will go to zero.

Why Recognition Matters

The product's license type starts from a default that the recognition database supplies. xAssets maintains the recognition data centrally — when SQL Server Developer Edition is added to the recognition database, it ships pre-classified as FREE.

When you accept a recognition update, those defaults flow into your catalog. If you have manually overridden a product's license type and a recognition update sets it back, you may need to re-apply your override. The recognition database's classification is a starting point; your catalog overrides are authoritative.

In the Licensing Position

Free products appear in the position with:

  • Non-zero Installed counts
  • Zero Seats, zero Rights, zero Outstanding Requirement
  • License Type column showing Free

This is the correct, expected appearance. Free products are visible (so you can see what is on your network) but do not contribute to compliance numbers.

If you want to filter them out of compliance reports, add a filter on LicenseType <> 'FREE' to the report query, or use the column to sort/group.