Do we need user licenses for JIRA read only access? We wish to use JIRA to track development, while allowing users to view progress/status.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

In the permission scheme, use the group "anyone" in the "browse" permission - people will then not be required to log in to see the issues in the project, and that sort of access requires no licence.  The users are anonymous.

Two recommendations though

• Do NOT grant any other access that might grant "write".  The last thing you want in an issue tracker is, well untracked changes to issues.
• If you are on JIRA 6.3 or lower, check the workflows - older versions have this slight hole in that if you don't put conditions on the workflows, the anonymous users can perform them.  S'bad.  On 6.3.something-high, "Can transition" was added to the permission schemes to fix this (and that's covered by the first recommendation)

[teilor_soares]

You can allow anonymous access in your instance, but in this case, if your instance is open in the internet and not restricted to your network, anyone will be able to view the data.

https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRACLOUD/Enabling+anonymous+access

If you want to have restrict access, with username and password, then you will need a license of each user, even if they do not add new data to the instance.

Cheers!
Teilor

[Joe Pitt]

Actually, if the instance in inside a intranet firewall only users inside the firewall will be able to access it. But if it is available to the outside Teilor is correct, the whole world will be able to see it.