JIRA Service Desk - Confluence Knowledge Base unlicensed user option

JA_Test

This question is in reference to Atlassian Documentation: JIRA Service Desk 3.1.x Release Notes

I am a little confused by the messaging in the release notes, can someone please clarify:

 

JIRA Service Desk 3.1.0 release notes from February 2016 state -

...If you have linked JIRA Service Desk with Confluence Server, keep an eye out for the next major Confluence release so you can make use of this new unlicensed user option.

Confluence 5.9 release notes from November 2015 state - 

If you use JIRA Service Desk, you can now allow all active users and customers to view knowledge base articles in Confluence without granting them a Confluence license or enabling anonymous access to your site. You enable this new setting via JIRA Service Desk, but you can turn it off in Confluence at any time (globally or for specific spaces).

...

Currently, this is only available if you integrate Confluence 5.9 with JIRA Service Desk Cloud. Keep an eye on the JIRA Service Desk release notes to find out when it's available for JIRA Service Desk Server.

Is the new unlicensed user option available yet for server customers or not ?

Christopher Mohr [codecentric]

Hi,

I stumbled over the same problem (using JSD Server). Service Desk lets new users create their own account which will not count for the license, but if you want these users to see the connected knowledgebase articles in Confluence as well, you have to set the space permission for anonymous viewing access.

Confluence does know "know" about the new users in JIRA because they are not automatically assigned to a group. If that would be the case, those users would count against the Confluence license and the while idea would be pointless.

From your quotes I assume that the next major Confluence release (6.0) will handle unlicensed Service Desk customer users, at least I hope so.