Unity 4.x Pro and Unity 5 personal on same machine?

As 4.x pro perpetual license holder am I obliged to buy 5.x pro license or deactivate my 4.x pro license to use Unity 5 personal?

I don't make anywhere near $100,000 per year ( got myself unity pro two years ago because I could not because I had to )

I understand as previously with Unity 4.x you can't use a pro and free license simultaneously, does this apply for 4.x and 5.x together? Or do the terms apply to their respective versions?

I definitely would like to start playing around with unity 5 to see what it's like.. but there's no way I can afford pro right now and I'm wondering if I'm pretty much stuck choosing between which versions.. or if I'm pretty screwed and either forced to buy pro again just because I bought previous pro ?

I have been reading the new license terms and faq and it's not very clear to me for different versions, any help would be appreciated.

 

On OS X 10.9, I first installed Unity 4.6.3 then renamed both the app and its folder "Unity4", afterwards I installed Unity 5. As of yet, everything is working, and I'm having no problems with both installations on the same computer.

 

Thanks @cl.9

I'm wondering though if it's a breach of license terms to have/use Unity 4.x pro at the same time as 5 personal edition?

 

Unfortunately I'm not sure. I'm using a combination of Unity 4 Free and Unity 5 Personal Edition.

 

Thanks for your input nonetheless, it keeps this thread alive amid all this excitement

I'd contact UT directly but seeing all this traffic going on with Unity 5 I think I'll wait a few days before contacting them. Hopefully someone who has experience with this situation might see this thread before it fades away.

 

No, you do not need to buy Unity 5 Pro if you make less than 100K a year. You can run both your 4.x Pro and 5 personal on the same machine but the EULA still prevents content mixing from Personal and Pro. Essentially you can have both editors on the same machine but you would not be able to upgrade your 4.x Pro project into 5 personal.

 

Wait, what!?
Let me see if I get this right.

I bought Unity Pro, iOS Pro and Android Pro (both versions 3 and 4). I bought the 2 mobiles' pro license because of engine features that were only available in a pro license.

Now, I can't upgrade any of my projects to 5 without buying Unity Pro, iOS Pro and Android pro licenses even though the features I need are now included in the free versions?

Is that what I just read?

 

We still prevent Pro and free mixing.

 

Thank you very much @Aurore for answering, this is good news for me.

I was hoping to keep my 4.x projects as 4.x only (since they don't require/need upgrades) and still be able to try out/use Unity 5.

Have a good week

 

In that particular use case, how does it impact the droves of people who pre-ordered and used a Pro license who are now lining up for refunds to move over to Personal? I understand the rationale, but in the case of people who have 4.x Pro just for features that are now in Personal and don't want the new services you're offering it seems a little awkward.

 

I really hope this isn't the case. You're telling me that I'm worse off than the people who didn't pay $850? That I paid to not use Unity 5 features? That I'm looking at $1500 for a lack of a splash screen and the dark editor skin? I could barely afford the Student Pro version before; how am I supposed to afford double that price now?

 

So if I cancel my Unity 5 pre-order, something will stop me importing my project into Unity 5 Personal Edition?

 

The way I understand it, it will work fine but it technically goes against the EULA. It's a legal thing, not a functionality thing.

 

From another thread:

 

This makes no sense to me. I understand wanting to stop teams from using free Unity to create a project and then publish under a single pro license, but prohibiting someone who bought 4.x pro from upgrading a project into the 5.x "personal" edition is just stupid. They paid for the pro features of 4.x, why shouldn't they be able to upgrade to the now free features of 5.x that everyone else can get for free?

 

From the EULA:

"You may not combine or integrate Licensee Content that you develop with Unity Personal simultaneously with any Licensee Content that you develop with Unity Pro or any Unity Pro Add-On Products. Licensee Content developed with Unity Personal will be tagged with an identifier that is used to enforce this restriction." (my bold)

So I wouldn't be so sure about the lack of technical limitation.

It's a whole separate issue, and IANAL, but the last time I discussed such things with one, they confirmed that licensing cannot restrict your rights regarding your wholly own content anyway. There is no way, for example, for Microsoft to restrict what you can and cannot do with the documents you produce using MS Word. No-one can impose restrictions on the use of content that they do not have rights to. The primary relevant exclusion to this is the binary that Unity produces, since *that* content also includes IP owned by UT and therefore is not redistributable without permission (permission they give you, with the appropriate commercial restrictions, through the EULA). Similarly the FSF cannot limit what you do with the compiled output from GCC but can limit you if you link to their libstdc. But as I said, I am not a lawyer.

 

I'm not one either, but strictly speaking they're not restricting what you do with your content - they're restricting whether or not you do it with their software.

 

I find this news pretty unsettling. As a Pro user since the early V2s, and someone who has always stumped up the Pro fee because of the functionality (and platforms) they added, I couldn't bring myself to put up the money for the Pro 5 licences. There's a lot of functionality in 5 that I could hold off on.

Now - all that functionality is free to anyone who hasn't supported Unity over the years and I'm prevented from moving my projects over because I have some Pro licences.

I really hope this turns out to be a false alarm or a reversed decision. If not I'll be looking at my future options.

 

As I understand it, that's not possible. It's kind of important too, otherwise Microsoft might in some way be answerable for every nasty document written with MS Word. But yes, fortunately we get to be software engineers not lawyers!!!

 

'You can run both your 4.x Pro and 5 personal on the same machine but the EULA still prevents content mixing from Personal and Pro.'
That sounds as very non-userfriendly approach. What is the reason behind it?

'Essentially you can have both editors on the same machine but you would not be able to upgrade your 4.x Pro project into 5 personal.'

And this is just a terrible news and I'm pretty sure it is about milking former PRO users, but feel free to correct me.
Please change it to an affordable solution!
It completely makes no sense and is against former customers who invested thousands of dollars to your product.
My all projects were made in Pro, so what should I do now? Pay PRO for the features I don't need? I planned to go for a refund (does refund work on upgrades, by the way?), but it seems I cannot open my own projects with Personal Edition... It is a joke.

Sorry if I misunderstood something.

 

It's no different to before.

Before, if you went from 3 pro to 4 free, you would have to accept the terms of <100k. Nothing changes except Unity giving so much away, wants to keep tabs on people who wish to cheat the system. It's fair.

Regarding Aurore's comment I think it's just a mix-up, you absolutely can transfer your project from pro to personal.

You just (AFAIK) can't develop on a bunch of personals and then deploy with a single pro at the end of it (just to prevent studios from abusing the hell out of the system with large teams).

Again, same deal as Unity 4.

 

It is completely different, but I'm sure you cannot see it (no offence). I think we should wait until it gets clarified.

 

I think hippocoder meant that the mixing of free and pro on a project is the same as it's always been ASSUMING Aurore's comment was a mix-up.

 

Thanks for clearing that up - a little. I'm still concerned by Waz's clip from the EULA:

"You may not combine or integrate Licensee Content that you develop with Unity Personal simultaneously with any Licensee Content that you develop with Unity Pro or any Unity Pro Add-On Products. Licensee Content developed with Unity Personal will be tagged with an identifier that is used to enforce this restriction." (my bold)

I've loaded up projects from my Pro 4 licence on a 'free' editors with the only restriction being the Pro features. For example - I have Pro Desktop and iOS - but free android - and I've never had an issue. Is this still the case?

 

I see.
We will need very clear definitions with examples, related to these things.

 

It is clarified. You're allowed to run both on the same machine and allowed to 'upgrade' from pro to personal.

 

Great, thanks. Where could we find the info?

 

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/ar...been-offered-today.306504/page-6#post-1997295

 

Thanks!

 

Hello Josh,

it the refund available for upgrades, too?

 

Not Josh, but yes you can get refunds on upgrades too.

 

Thanks.

 

Oh wow, this is even better news!

Thanks for looking into this everyone, have a great week!

 

This was refuted by Aurore.

But looks like they might fix it at some point.

 

I think it will get fixed. The original meaning was to prevent studios from developing with free and going to pro for builds/features. It's outdated and needs revision, which is understandable... otherwise they'd lose customers like water through a sieve as they wouldn't be forced to only use pro forever even if they started the game on any prior pro version, say 2.x.

Nobody's that stupid.

 

I hope there's some resolution. And I understand it may be more about legal speak than practical application. For the meantime I'm holding off downloading Unity 5... hope everyone else is enjoying it

 

They already did in the other thread. A 4pro to 5personal is ok.

 

Yeah, it was clarified here

 

Awesome... time to install!