Headline: How does our ThinLinc 10-user free limit actually work?

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We recently had a great exchange with a potential user at a large federal government department. They had a “tricky” question about our ThinLinc Community License that we thought was worth sharing with everyone.

If you’ve ever wondered where the “boundary” of an organization lies, this one’s for you.

The Question:
“We are a small team, but we’re part of a massive government entity. Does the 10-user limit apply to just our team, our department, or the entire government? Also, can we have 100 servers with 1 user each?”

The Straight Answer:

  1. On Instances vs. Humans: It’s okay to install 100 servers software if you like. However, the limit is based on the people. You are not allowed to have more than 10 concurrent users connected at the same time across all those installations.
  2. On the “Organization” Boundary : We look at the organization as a whole. To use a Swedish example: think of IKEA. If a small department in southern Sweden uses ThinLinc for 10 users under the Community License, that counts as the “10 free seats” for the entire IKEA organization worldwide. The same logic applies to a federal government.

Why we’re telling you this:
At Cendio, we aren’t like the “Big Tech” giants. We don’t want to hide behind 500 pages of legal jargon or “gotcha” clauses. We believe in:

Transparency: No robots, no confusing EULAs—just clear rules.
Flexibility: Because we are a tight-knit team, we have short decision paths. If the standard model doesn’t fit your unique government or corporate structure, we can be flexible and build a commercial model that actually makes sense for you.
Proven Success: We already have government customers globally using ThinLinc with high satisfaction.

The Takeaway: If you’re a small team in a giant organization, don’t stay in the “legal gray zone.” Reach out! We’re happy to jump on a call, talk through your architecture, and find a way to make ThinLinc work for your specific needs.

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The problem with this model is that in a large organisation, the left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing. So, for example, if IKEA Sweden starts using Thinlinc, they might not have the faintest notion that IKEA USA has purchased 100 licenses or any viable way to find out and that they cannot use the Community license.

It does not need to be a multinational corporation either. Within a university, what one faculty is doing is basically opaque to other faculties. So two faculties could easily have set up servers with free limits, unbeknownst to each other, and now be in violation.

I have the feeling that this “model” was devised by people with little to no experience of working in large organisations.

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Spot on, @jabuzzard — you’re hitting the nail right on the head here.

You’re completely right that in large organizations, the left hand rarely knows what the right hand is doing. We fully get that.

The intent behind this rule isn’t to catch anyone acting in good faith. If two separate faculties end up using the Community license without knowing about each other, we’re not going to send lawyers after you. We’ll simply sit down and figure out a sensible way forward together.

The rule is just there to stop from systematically splitting into hundreds of micro-teams to run their entire infrastructure for free.

Our takeaway: If you’re ever unsure whether someone else in your organization is already using ThinLinc, just reach out! We can check our records for you so you don’t have to play guessing games.

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