Clogging up the Web

In a move that brings CFML into the same arena as PHP, New Atlanta have decided that, as of June 2008, they will release their BlueDragon CFML server as free open-source. It will be available as an Eclipse J2EE project with an ant build script. What will be open-sourced will be roughly equivalent to Adobe’s ColdFusion Standard Edition, to the best of my knowledge. Additional versions will be available on a commerical basis as will the “stable” commercial version of the open-source edition.

You can read an interview with New Atlanta’s Vince Bonfanti here: http://coldfusion.dzone.com/articles/freeing-dragon-interview-vince

This is a very interesting move. Not only is there the potential that CFML will gain ground on Java/.NET/PHP in the web application space, but it also has the potential for the user community to begin driving the advancement of ColdFusion. In the past a combination of new additions by New Atlanta and Allaire/Macromedia/Adobe have been adopted into their future editions. Now I wonder if the community will enhance the open-source version, branch off from the steering-committee-controlled BlueDragon, and / or force Adobe to change their version or even go open-source themselves. Interesting months ahead…

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