I use Bluedragon on my VPS because BD7 came out before cf8 and had the cfthread feature I needed, otherwise I probably would not have used BD7. I think one of the main reasons that Smith has not taken off is because of bugs and features missing. I need certain features and if those features are not in Smith I cannot use it free or not.

Another thing I wonder about is hosting. With BD being open source will more hosting companies install it and offer CF hosting to their clients?

-Randy

I've tried Smith and after the long install and setup, it didn't run my Model-Glue app at all.
I'm really interested in this for clients who want to host their own site and can't or don't want to afford a ColdFusion license, since I don't want to switch to PHP for certain projects. Can't wait 'til June to see how this turns out, I have no experience with BlueDragon...

I had to learn PHP over the years because sometimes smaller clients don't want to spend much on hosting or ask "Why are you charging me MORE to host the site just because you decided to program it in CFML"? (Okay, no one asks that specific question but they would if I insisted on coding in CF only.)

Most hosts use CPanel or similar and that gives you a cool interface to control the site and install "free" software. PHP is installed as standard but there's often a button on new hosting plans to deploy Ruby On Rails for example. Why shouldn't there be a button to deploy BlueDragon too? Then clients can pay the tiny sum of $50/year for buckets of disk space and bandwidth *and* CFML compatability.

Sometimes it's nice to work on a few quick "cheap" websites where clients don't have much money but their ideas, designs, or potential is intersting. PHP lets me runs those sites cheaply and the clients are very happy.

Then there're students of all ages who think "I'd like to program a web site but that PHP/Ruby/.NET looks too complicated for me". If there was CFML hosting for the price of PHP hosting (or combined on the same hosting plan) then students have nothing more to pay and nothing to lose by trying out CFML.

So that's where I see BD open source doing well. Increasing the CFML market share.

You know my hope is that those running these alternative CF servers along with Adobe will actually do something with BlueDragon. SmithProject has had a good run and they have had their issues but now they have another code base to play with. Maybe a melding of minds here? Same thing for Ralio? And Adobe if they are serious about OS this is a great way for them to test out the waters etc like Sean mentioned.

I primarily work on projects for my own purposes, but I've had opportunities for client work that have passed because there was no way to talk a small business into eating the cost of CF on top of my bill. BD going OS changes that.

It also renews my desire to build packaged apps in CFML, since there is now there's a realistic target... I don't have to sell someone on the underlying platform, just the app itself.

Ray,

You said "<em>amount of people who submit back code modifications is far smaller than the people who use the products</em>"

Do you think it's an education/awareness thing here? Do people know that they can submit changes?

Sean, over in his blog, wrote that the CF Community has not exactly stepped up with help with CFEclipse, Smith, etc. Did the CF Community know that they can? What's the bottleneck keeping them from doing so? Not sure how one can complain and say no one helps when you haven't given people a grocery list of things of HOW they can help. Can you? Have they?

I'm using you as an example here (so, don't think I'm out for blood, I'm not), but how do you handle your open source projects? You're the general controller of BlogCFC/Galleon/Lighthouse, if the CF Community were to push changes at you, what would they have to do? Do you have anything / anywhere that states what should happen? or should everyone just magically understand subversion?

Maybe it's just me, but I'm thinking it's lack of awareness / know-how or even just a general page on how to get involved IMHO. I don't think it's fair for anyone to say that the CF Community hasn't been involved.

Great points Ray! I need to look at adding some kind of "How to help" section to the CFEclipse site or wiki.

Oh Todd, no worries. I didn't take it personally, I thought it was a good example actually.

Ray is right, the big weird problem with CF is the server is written in a language most people who use it can't contribute to. But a free server will help with small projects, cheap hosting, and build a larger community - I hope.

>>and RIAForge projects have a issue tracker for making suggestions and reporting bug fixes.

Well, I sent in a note about the RIAForge comments themselves being very hard to read and distinguish the way they are currently formatted, then nothing happened at all, no auto reply or anything, then when making a comment on a blog - here or the Camden blog - was told to code it myself and send it in, then I actually did that, maybe 1-2 months ago, I forget, then again nothing happened, no reply, nothing. Only a small waste of time, and just letting you know but I think it points out that we generally don't run very good open source projects in the cf world yet. Most are one man shows. Hopefully a free server will help enlarge the community and improve that over time.

I was just coming back to reply, hopefully before you did. I suddenly remembered I changed my email address at riaforge before and I just found your reply to the code change I sent in. So my mistake on that, you did reply, sorry. I haven't even read it yet but will now. Maybe I can explain the change better.

@Nate Smith
I have been thinking sort of the same in the past. But looking what Adobe has added to CF8 and what BlueDragon 7 has to offer the difference is "almost null". Yes, sure CF8 integrated the extjs stuff really nice, but I am right now in the middle of using extjs by itself and it is easier to use then you would think. What other benefits are there compared to CF8 then to BB7 J2EE?

In any case, I don't want to go into the "compare" thing or anything alike.

My point is that there is a platform, a solid language that works well for most of us. Making BB available to other developers or lowering the entry point (money rules the world and so people do judge a lot when it comes down to price) is a good move. In the end, I even state that Adobe benefits in every way from New Atlanta's move to open source the J2EE edition.

If they would open their minds and see the benefit of a community driven model, as they have since Adobe is also making their other core technologies available to the community, they will see it the same way.

Let's not forget that NA already has a free version of BlueDragon. And a couple of years ago you could even use that edition for commercial projects. Then NA changed their license and the free version could not be used for anything "undertaken to make a profit" any more.

Now, while OS _should_ be about everybody being able to contribute, for most people it really is about a software being free. For the majority of developers the OS edition will simply mean there is a free edition available for commercial purposes.

Actually I wonder if BD going OS isn't like trying to revert something that may have been a mistake, at least for some part. Plus, I think, the fact that Adobe OSed Flex may have played a role in the decision to OS BD, too.

Just my 2 cents.