Comments on: ColdFusion Virtual Machine Licensing

By: Christopher Bradford

Christopher Bradford — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 17:19:13 +0000

Since I don’t necessarily know how many physical CPUs my Amazon EC2 is running on, how can I determine how CF Enterprise licensing would work on EC2?

By: johnb

johnb — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 10:15:51 +0000

following the release of 8.0.1 I’ve just looked at the EULA and blogged about it at http://john.beynon.org.uk/index.cfm/2008/4/4/ColdFusion-801-EULA-Changes

By: Darren

Darren — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 23:57:14 +0000

Any updates from Jason on this? We are about to pull the trigger and get some licenses of Professional or Enterprise but we need to know the implications of each on EC2. Jason, if you could follow up or link us to an updated license agreement that would be great.

Thanks,

Darren

By: Mary Jo Sminkey

Mary Jo Sminkey — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 01:21:11 +0000

What I am seeing is more hosts looking at BlueDragon hosting and even considering engines like Railo for their needs, if customers don’t need any of the high-end ColdFusion functions that CF8 has. With BD J2EE server going open source, this may become a popular option for virtual server offerings if Adobe doesn’t step up and find ways for hosts to be competitive and not extracting every possible dime from them. Keeping in mind that much of the drive for virtual servers is for customers that can’t afford the cost of their own server but need better than shared hosting (something ColdFusion has never been particularly robust for). The same group of customers are the ones that are not going to want (or afford) a full licensed copy of ColdFusion with the current pricing structure.

By: Randy

Randy — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 19:59:38 +0000

Adding a Comment so I can subscribe to this thread.

-Randy

By: I Rz

I Rz — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 14:15:36 +0000

We have quite a few VPS with a well known host that run our CMS system for our clients. We have been looking to move them to Joomla or Drupal because of the expense of CF8 licensing. We would like to stay with CF but it is getting too expensive for our clients. Good news Jason. Maybe the new EULA will help us stay with CF.

By: Jason Delmore

Jason Delmore — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:47:54 +0000

Hi everyone,

I have good news. ColdFusion 8 Updater 1, due out "soon", will have an updated EULA that I believe will addresses these concerns. I don’t want to get into official language, but I think you will all be happy with the changes. A million things go into making a release happen, every once in a while we make a mistake. Thanks for keeping us honest.

I can post a more official response once the Updater is publicly available.

Cheers,
Jason

Senior Product Manager, ColdFusion
Adobe Systems, Inc.

By: Eric K. Miller

Eric K. Miller — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 00:21:09 +0000

I’m also wondering if there have been any updates to this issue. I had an opportunity recently with ColdFusion-based virtual appliances and this thread killed it. I want to be as fair as possible toward Adobe, but I think the licensing issues have gotten out of hand. A EULA should correspond to how a user is actually going to use the product and still be fair toward the manufacturer. I know that the ColdFusion EULA is written to protect Adobe in a conservative approach, but there also has to be an honor system with regards to licensing. I doubt there will ever be a way to provide a fair EULA that is based on both physical and virtual hardware. Either physical hardware OR virtual hardware should be licensed. For hosting companies, I think the terms should be varied to allow for OEM-style pricing, which covers all forms of virtualization, whether it be VMware or Virtuozzo, for a very reduced cost. It benefits Adobe by getting ColdFusion out in the market more, raising awareness and retail purchases, yet provides a competitive price for hosting companies that are competing for pennies per customer. There also should be a license leasing program such as Microsoft’s SPLA.

Somewhat un-related to the topic at hand… with the competition against ColdFusion (PHP, .NET, etc.), the price of ColdFusion is always a topic of discussion. I know it contains a large number of packaged components that provide high-level functions, but there are MANY people who have no need for these. More flexible purchasing options, bringing the price down on the "core" product, may actually save the product from extinction, otherwise I personally think it is doomed. I love ColdFusion… have been using it professionally for 9 years now, and can’t imagine the world without it, but the price is going to kill it quickly.

Either that, or a campaign comparing ColdFusion, PHP, and .NET "must" happen to get the word out about the advantages and there really is a positive ROI with the investment.

By: Cam

Cam — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:41:17 +0000

Just came across this blog. Has anything more reasonable shaken down from it?

A client has a quad CPU MS Virt Server they use to run a variety of VMs for their office rather than fill their rack with a bunch of specialized machines. We want to add CF8 to a single VM on that box with a virtualized uniprocessor. By my reading of the above comments, and the licence agreement, this would require the purchase of 2 CF licences for the host machine and one CF licence for the VM.

Please tell me that this has changed.

By: john b

john b — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 00:03:57 +0000

yes, i guess it would (unless you had 2 licenses) – if it was just a plain clean VPS and you install CF yourself (like GoDaddy Virtual Servers) I’d imagine the hosting companies offering CF would be straight and legal (you’d hope!)